The Golden Angels
by Fencedude
Summary: A crazy crossover between characters from Lyrical Nanoha, Madoka Magica, Negima, Strike Witches, Sky Girls and even more. An indulgent action romp with some of the most awesome girls from anime. See my profile for more information.
1. Mysterious Encounter

**I claim no ownership over any of the characters or series appearing in this work.**

**This was originally written as flavor text for a forum game. Don't expect any deep plot lines or character development, this is pure action and fanservice. Also yes, I've taken some liberties with the abilities of several of the characters.  
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**Chapter 1: Mysterious Encounter**

"Long Arch Command to Lightning 1, come in Lightning 1", the familiar Kansai drawl rang inside Fate's head as she flew over the Pacific Ocean.

"Lightning 1 here, no sign of the unknown energy signature." The Time-Space Administration Beureau maintains a constant watch for unusual energy signatures in the areas it maintains, and anomalies are investigated to make sure they don't form a threat. Fate smiled a bit, realizing that this was exactly how the TSAB first became involved in her life.

"Sir, approaching estimated coordinates of anomaly", Bardiche's emotionless tone was detached, yet still always a comforting presence.

"Thank you, Bardiche, please record all events from this point"

"Yes Sir." Fate dived through the clouds, the anomaly having been detected near the surface of the ocean, off the eastern coast of Japan. Not too far from Uminari City, she thought to herself.

As she broke through the cloud layer, there seemed to be nothing but flat ocean, as far as the eye could see. "Long Arch Command, this is Lightning 1, I'm not detecting any anomalies at these coordinates. Are we sure this isn't another false alarm?"

"Its beginning to look that way Ligh…" the transmission broke off in a burst of distorted noise, something that shouldn't happen, considering the magical nature of the link.

"Long Arch Command, can you read me? Long Arch Command! Hayate!" Fate attempted to reestablish the connection, but to no avail. "Bardiche, can you contact base?"

"No Sir, all transmissions are being blocked. Alert. Unknown energy signature detected. Does not match any known patterns. Midchildan. Belkan. Pattern is unknown" As Bardiche made the report, Fate felt a darkness close upon her. She began to climb back into the sky, but it was too late. A soundless roar came upon her, and all went black.

Off the coast of Japan, the empty expanse of the ocean was alone once again…

* * *

><p>Mami was very confused. She'd been tracking a witch like normal, but well before she reached the witch, she found an unusual portal. It was similar to the ones used to enter the Witch's Worlds, but not quite the same. She first moved past the portal, but the magic trace moved to point behind her, so this was what she was detecting. She looked around to see if Kyubey was in the area, but strangely there was no sign of him, he wasn't responding to her telepathic call either. With no other choice, Mami steeled herself and stepped through the portal. The passage felt different, in that it felt at all, usually it's a sharp transition from the real world to the distorted landscape created by the Witch, but this time a soundless noise rang in her head, and her vision blanked for a moment. When it receded, she found herself here. Wherever "here" is, at any rate.<p>

She looked around at her surroundings, while clearly not the real world, it didn't feel like a Witch's World. It didn't have the same twisted wrongness, those worlds weren't just unusual, they were "impossible". Here it was just…different. It was a lightly wooded area, with a few seemingly abandoned buildings scattered around. However many of the trees were decidedly not normal, one she noticed seemed to be covered in bright purple feathers, though right next to it was a completely normal oak tree. Pulling out her Soul Gem, she sees its still detecting a magical signature. "I guess there is a witch around here, so at least I'm not here for no reason", she unconsciously spoke aloud, perhaps in reaction to the odd silence. Orienting herself towards the magic trace, she finds herself facing an abandoned building, "well, here we go".

Fifteen minutes later, Mami finds herself on the roof of the building, but no Witch in sight. "This is very distressing", she mutters to herself, and then looks up into the, oddly teal, sky. "Ah ha!" Far out in the distance, visible only due to magically enhanced sight, is what must be the Witch, flying towards her position. Reaching behind her back, she pulls a musket out of nowhere, and aims it towards the Witch, and pulls the trigger…

* * *

><p>Fate emerges from the darkness, in the sky of an unknown world. The sky was a teal color that she'd rarely seen on any of the planets she'd visited, and looking down the forest below her was clearly wrong. She saw earth oak tress next to Midchildan featherlets, next to trees she'd never seen before. "Where are we, Bardiche?"<p>

"Location unknown, unable to connect to TSAB Dimensional Positioning System", well, that was inconvenient. They must have been transported well out of TSAB administered space. "Magical energy reading detected, range 2 kilometers, bearing 135."

"Is it the same as the energy that sent us here?"

"No sir. But pattern is unknown"

"Two unknown energy patterns? This is getting very suspicious." Turning in the direction Bardiche indicated, Fate speeds towards the new anomaly.

"Warning, incoming fire" Bardiche's dispassionate announcement was only a formality, Fate's auto-shield had already activated, blocking the energy projectile effortlessly. "Assault originated at same location as anomaly"

"That's hardly a surprise", Fate quipped. Enhancing her vision a bit, she zoomed in on the remaining kilometer and a half, and saw an abandoned building. Standing on the roof was…a girl? A blonde girl with curly twintails, surrounded by what looked like dozens and dozens of rifles. As she watched, the girl grabbed two of the rifles and fired them at Fate, then threw them away and repeated with anther pair. "Now that is no way to greet someone", as she dodges the incoming fire. "Bardiche, Harken Form"

"Yes Sir. Harken Form" Bardiche transformed, a bright yellow energy blade forming.

"Plasma Lancer!" Four energy bolts appeared around Fate, and then shot off towards the unknown girl. Fate immediately took off after them. The shots reached the girl first, but she saw them coming and actually shot two of them down, and then cartwheeled out of the impact zone for the others. "Not bad", Fate thought to herself, "Harken Saber!" Swinging Bardiche, she sent the energy blade flying towards the girl, who dodged it effortlessly. "Plasma Smasher!" The blast of gold magical energy shot across the distance between Fate and the unknown girl, at a speed dwarfing that of the previous attacks, but the girl reacted with blinding speed. Kicking two of the rifles impaled into the roof, they flew upwards into the path of the beam, resulting in a massive explosion. Out of the smoke and crackling energy backflipped Fate's assailant. "She's not bad, is she? But it's time to stop playing around. Bardiche!"

"ZANBER FORM!"

* * *

><p>Mami was quite surprised at how easily the Witch was dodging her attacks, but the return fire really shocked her. Most Witches don't go for energy projectiles. But it wasn't a big deal. She cartwheeled through the musket's she'd spread across the roof, dodging the projectiles and returning fire. The initial attacks were similar to her own musket bolts, simple enough to dodge or even shoot down. The follow up scything blade came as a surprise though. It was much larger and slower, but she was unable to shoot it down. It sliced through a number of her muskets, even curving towards her as she dodged. But its homing ability was minimal, and it ended up blasting a chunk out of the stairwell entrance. The high powered energy beam was more of a problem, it was so fast it was on her before she realized it, and so large that dodging seemed out of the question. As a desperate measure she tossed a couple of muskets up in front of her and as the beam hit them used her binding ribbons to form a makeshift shield. It was barely enough and only because the moment she had the ribbons up she backflipped away. As the smoke cleared from the explosion, the Witch had come even closer...only Mami was starting to doubt that it was a Witch at all.<p>

Most Witches look nothing like the humans they once were, their evil having twisted them into forms more appropriate for their desires, but this…this was a girl? Or rather, a woman. She looked to be at least five years older than Mami herself, with long blonde hair in twintails, a black uniform and a white cape. As Mami watched, the glowing yellow scythe in her hands reconfigured, the shaft shrinking down, and the blade portion splitting apart, and from the new hilt, a massive energy sword appeared. "Oh, that isn't good" she muttered, and ripped the ribbon from her neck, and spun it around several of the muskets, transforming them into a gigantic cannon, even larger than the sword the mysterious woman was slicing towards her.

"Tiro Finale!" a massive blast erupted from the cannon, but somehow was actually cut in half by the woman's sword. Before Mami could react, the gigantic energy blade sliced into the cannon itself, which exploded into pure magical power. The blast tossed Mami backwards and she slammed into the fence surrounding the roof. The impact knocked the breath out of her for a moment, as she struggled to recover she looked up and saw the brilliant yellow blade heading directly for her neck. She threw her hands up over her face, a futile, instinctive gesture. As the blade was about to hit she closed her eyes and prepared to die. But nothing happened.

Cautiously she opened her eyes, and looked down to see the blade of the sword all but touching the left side of her neck. Idly, and somewhat inanely, she noticed it didn't seem to give off any heat. Shaking off the pointless diversion, she looked up and found herself staring into a pair of large, deep red eyes. "I am Enforcer Fate Testarossa Harlaown of the Time Space Administration Bureau, you are under arrest for assaulting a TSAB Operative. Do you have anything to say?" The sweet, yet slightly husky voice washed over Mami, and she realized she may have made a bit of a mistake

"Would you believe me if I said this was a case of mistaken identity?" with a half smile that was the best she could muster after her shock.


	2. The Dark Evangel

**Chapter 2: The Dark Evangel**

Fate watched as the girl opened her eyes, darting around in surprise, before focusing in on Fate's face. There was a tinge of anxiety within their golden glow, but it faded as the girl put on a bit of a half smile. "Mistaken identity you say? Who did you think I was?"

"Not who, but what. I thought you were a Witch, and this a Witch's World. It seems I was mistake. My apologies. My name is Tomoe Mami, a Magical Girl contracted to Kyubey. You said your name was…Fate-san? What is this "Time Space Administration Bureau?" The girl continued to smile, faintly, but genuinely. Fate lowered Bardiche from her neck, and returned it to device form.

"The TSAB is in charge of administering all of dimensional space, we do not have explicit authority over Earth, though we have experience with the planet. I lived here...there for a while, actually. I don't know what these "Witches" you refer to are though. Bardiche, have you ever…" A bone shattering roar interrupted Fate's questions, and she saw Mami's eyes dart over her shoulder, and her face go deathly pale. Turning around, she sees what shocked the girl so much. Up in the sky there was a...hole, a jagged gash in the fabric of reality itself, revealing not blackness, but a sickening nothingness behind it. Even the bizarre, distorted colorscape of interdimensional space couldn't compare to the shear wrongness this hole in reality revealed. As she looked, creatures, monsters like she'd never seen before began to emerge from the void. First one, then another, and finally a torrent that seemed unending.

Mami had watched the sky rip itself open, something that seemed more wrong than the most bizarre, perverted Witch's World she'd ever seen. Her shock must have appeared on her face, because before she said anything Fate had spun around to look behind her. As the monsters started to pour from the rip in reality, Mami stood up at last. "Well, Fate-san. It seems that we may have a larger problem on our hands now."

The monsters were a dark grey color, with dull crystals embedded across their bodies. Every so often the crystals would flash iridescently, but they mostly stayed dark. The creatures had two legs, and no forelimbs, heads filled with inches long fangs, and whipping tails. Mami and Fate took in these details in a moment as they opened fire with long range attacks. Mami firing her muskets as fast as she could summon them, Fate opened up with a barrage of Plasma Lancers that devastated the opening ranks. But the monsters emerged from the rift faster than they could be destroyed.

* * *

><p>Fate and Mami's battle raged, the monsters scales were no match for Bardiche's blade, but their sharp teeth and claws could slice right through barrier jackets. Fate had several gashes on her arms, while Mami had taken what could be a serious injury to her right leg, but still they fought. But no matter how many of the monsters they killed, even more spilled out of the tear in the very fabric of space. The two fought like old comrades, cleanly slipping into roles that were clearly quite familiar to them both. Mami kept up her supporting fire, making sure to take out the monsters that seemed most dangerous at any given moment. Fate had transformed Bardiche back into Zanber form, and was cutting a swath through the creatures at close range, while simultaneously using ranged magic to back up Mami's efforts.<p>

"Mami, get close to my back!" Mami backed up against the older girl, when Fate sensed she was close enough, she raised Bardiche high in the air her magic circle erupting on the ground beneath them. "THUNDER RAGE!" Fate's yell pierced through the constant, unrelenting growl of the monsters, and from the tip of Bardiche's blade, golden lightning erupted all around the two girls, each bolt destroying a monster. the lightning cleared a large circle on the rooftop, but it wasn't enough. Almost as soon as the lightning vanished, the creatures rushed in and engaged the girls once again.

"Fate-san, we have to close that hole, somehow" Mami called out, as she blew two of the monsters out of the sky. "Do you have any magic that can do that?" Despite her wounded leg, she twisted out of the way of a tail swipe and blew the monster away from close range.

"I have something that might work, but it takes a while to set up, I don't think you can keep these things off of me long enough to do it. Even using Thunder Rage again won't work, I can't go from one to the other without stopping for a moment. You don't have any abilities like that do you?" Mami indicated that she didn't, as Fate sliced three of the creatures in half with her Zanber. "If we could just stop them for a minute, I think I can stop them. But as it is, I can't even get into the air without them piling onto me."

"Oh, you need these stopped do you?" An unknown voice rang in Fate's head, glancing over at Mami, she seemed to have heard it as well, judging by the way she was looking around confused. "I think I can handle that, Midchildan Battle Mage. Then you can seal the breach. But first you are going to want to put up a barrier for yourself and your friend. Its about to get very cold around here." The voice was very young sounding, younger even than Mami, yet had an air of authority in it, it reminded Fate of her mother, a little bit. Both her mothers, now that she thought of it. It was a voice that expected obedience.

"Mami, stay close to me, I'm going to put up a barrier, but it won't hold for long against these things, so hopefully whoever that is knows what they are talking about." Holding Bardiche in her left hand, she throws her right hand forward, a yellow magic circle forming in the air. "Protection!" Fate and Bardiche's voices echo against each other. A transparent yellow dome forms over the girls, causing several of the monsters to bounce off, but they immediately start clawing at it. "Whoever you are, do whatever it is you're going to do, fast!"

"I'm right here, so don't get your panties in a twist." In front of the barrier, a young girl floats down from the sky. Wearing an incredibly short black dress, golden blonde hair billowing about, her bare feet not quite touching the ground, she looks over her shoulder, brilliant blue eyes glowing. "The Dark Evangel is here to save your pretty little behinds, so watch and learn!" with that she smiled, and Fate could see that inside her mouth were two fanged incisors.

The girl started to chant, "Lic Lac La Lac Lilac!" The word that followed were in a language Fate had never heard before, but somehow she was able to understand them anyway. "To Sumbolaion Diakonētō Moi, hē Krustallinē Basileia! Epigenēthētō, Taiōnion Erebos, Haiōnie Krustalle! Pasais Zōais ton Ison Thanaton, hos Ataraxia!", "_Heed the Contract and Serve Me, Queen of Ice! Come, Unending Darkness, Eternal Glacier! Bring Death to All That Has Life, Eternal Rest!_". As the girl chanted, cold wind started to blow all around, the chill penetrating even into Fate's barrier. By the end of the chant, ice had formed, and covered the entire building. The monsters themselves were freezing, forming a huge sheet of ice stretching across the roof, and down the sides of the building, the monsters falling out of the sky, huge chunks of ice with monsters embedded in them crashed to the ground, and into the roof of the building.

Fate realized she'd seen this once before, over ten years ago, at the end of the Book of Darkness incident. But then it required a special device, built solely for that purpose, it should be impossible for someone to do this spell unaided. It was perhaps even more powerful than the Durandal's Eternal Coffin, as impossible as that was to believe. As these thoughts rushed through her head, all the monsters had been frozen, there was even a solid sheet of frozen monsters leading up to the tear in the sky. Finally, the girl turned towards them, and smiled, those fangs glinting in the light. She snapped her fingers "Kosmikē Katastrophē!", "_The End of the World!_". With those last words, the ice shattered, destroying all the monsters in a single moment. A rain of ice particles falls around the three girls, all traces of the creatures pulverized from existence.

Fate dropped her barrier, "Bardiche, Sealing Form!" Bardiche transformed into a mode she hadn't used in many years, golden wings of light sprouted from the shaft, the blade portion rotating upwards. Putting her left hand up towards the rip in reality, a large magic circle forming before her. Whispering a brief incantation, she thrusts Bardiche into the magic circle. "TRIDENT SMASHER!" three huge beams of energy shoot towards the gash, which begins to glow with a golden light. After a few moments, the light fades, revealing the teal tinted sky, unmarred by the evil looking gash. With a grunt of breath leaving her body, Fate slumps to her knees.

"Fate-san, are you alright?" Mami limps over to Fate, heedless of her own injury.

"I'm fine, just a bit winded. We really need to be concerned about you. Unfortunately I'm not very good at healing magic." Mami looks down at her leg, and suddenly seems to realize how bad it actually is. With this realization the pain comes back to her as well, as if her lack of knowledge had prevented the pain from registering at all.

They mysterious girl walks over to them, her bare feet crunching the ice remaining on the rooftop. "Well, this is a fine mess, isn't it? I try to visit my resort, and instead I find myself here, in the middle of a raging battle. Though you two should be glad, you wouldn't have lasted much longer without my help." The girl had an insufferably smug tone to her voice, though in fairness, she was right. "Oh, I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Evangeline A.K. McDowell, The Dark Evangel, also know as Maga Nosferatu, the High Daylight Walker. Who are you?"

Fate and Mami just stared at her in shock.


	3. In The Invisible Sky

**Chapter 3: In the Invisible Sky**

Evangeline ignored the expressions on their faces and kneeled down next to Mami, who was obviously favoring her left leg at this point. "You, sit. We need to get this taken care of. I didn't rescue you just to have you bleed to death". Mami finally seemed to realize how bad her wound was, and sat down gingerly, obviously starting to feel pain. "Now unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at healing magic, for rather obvious reasons, and I doubt this Midchildan mage could heal her way out of a paper bag." Fate started a bit at that, but motioned agreement that she couldn't help. "So how about you, Miss Magical Girl?"

Mami grimaced a bit as she stretched her injured leg out, "yes, I can do healing magic, but unfortunately I can't use it on myself. I've tried in the past, it just doesn't work." She peered at Evangeline, "you aren't a Witch are you?"

Evangeline chuckled at that, "I have been called a witch, I was once even burned at the stake. Not a pleasant experience, if you're curious, but no. I'm not the kind of Witch you probably think I am. But that's for later." Ending the conversation, Evangeline tugs off Mami's right boot, and then strips off the tattered remains of her thighhigh. With the bloody sock out of the way, the wound looked bad. A slice running from just below her knee on the right to halfway up the top of her thigh, with blood still pulsing out of it. "Oh this is not good at all, but I think I can deal with it." And with that, Evangeline lowers herself over Mami's leg, and begins to lick up the blood. Mami turns bright red in shock, while Fate blushed nearly as much.

"Ev…Evangeline-san, what are you doing?" Mami manages to get out.

"Well, as you may have figured out by now, I'm a vampire. And that spell I just used is no joke, so I'm feeling a bit peckish." She looks up, a bit of Mami's blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. Behind Mami she can see Fate trying to decide whether to look away or pull Evangeline away. "But that's not the only thing, one interesting side effect of being a vampire is that our saliva has slight disinfecting and analgesic properties. Its not as good as full on medical treatment, but it will reduce the pain and help prevent infection." As she looks up again from her "treatment", she sees Fate still trying not to look "oh, you remind me of someone I know, she'd have this same reaction. Anyway, we'll need cloth to bind the wound, find something."

Fate looked around the rooftop, covered in melting ice and chunks of monster corpse, and then sighed to herself and pulled off her cape. "Bardiche, Harken Form". Using the energy blade, she cuts strips off of the cape, and brings them over to Evangeline, who looked to be finishing up. "Here you go. My name is Fate, Fate Testarossa Harlaown, an Enforcer with the Time-Space Administration Bureau" She handed the strips to Evangeline, who starts wrapping them around Mami's leg. "I have a question…Evangeline", she hesitated a bit, but moved onwards, "while I'm not from Earth, I lived there for some time when I was young and…as far as I know, Vampires don't exist." Fate actually looked somewhat sheepish at making the admission.

"I'm not surprised you think that, considering what has most likely brought us here." She looked down at Mami, who was feeling her leg, and pulling her boot back on, "in fact, I'll bet you'd never heard of the 'Witches' this girl here…"

"Mami, Tomoe Mami", Mami interjected as she pushes herself to her feet

"Ah, that Mami here referred to, correct? And Mami, I'm sure you've never encountered a Vampire, or heard of the Time-Space Administration Bureau, have you?" Both Mami and Fate nodded. Well that's because…a roar off in the distance interrupted Evangeline. "Oh that's not good, We probably shouldn't hang around here much longer. Both of you are capable of flight, correct?", another nod from both the other girls. "Well in that case, lets get to somewhere a bit less…messy, and we can discuss it more on the way. With that, Evangeline floats up in the air and starts heading westward, towards the setting sun. Fate and Mami look at each other, and Mami smiles and gives a faint shrug and jumps into the air, followed by Fate. Behind them, to the east, another roar emerges from the forest…

* * *

><p>As she flew over the Adriatic Sea, Perrine H. Clostermann, Flying Officer of the Free Gallian Air Force and 501st Joint Fighter Wing, was growling magnificently. Right before her long awaited private training with Major Sakamoto, she'd been told she had to go run a scouting mission over this completely empty stretch of ocean. It seems that the Sanya had managed to wake up long enough to report an anomaly, and then promptly went back to sleep, like she always did. Since the Major obviously couldn't take the patrol, and the rest of the 501st was away from the base, it was left to Perrine to investigate. But it wasn't a total loss, it was a beautiful day for flying, crystal blue sky as far as the eye can see, and the deep blue of the ocean far below. It was as if the entire world was open to her.<p>

As she enjoyed the feel of flying through the air, Perrine realized she was no longer alone, someone had joined her. No, not someone…something. She came to a halt, hovering in the sky, and spun around…and found herself mere yards from one of the witch-shaped Neuroi. It was impossible. The last time the witch-shaped Neuroi appeared was right before the hive had descended on Romagna, and none had been seen since. The shock at its appearance had flustered Perrine, and she belatedly snapped her Bren machine gun upwards, pointing it at the Neuroi. The Neuroi skittered backwards a few yards in reaction, and…shook its head? It then raised one of its arms and pointed off behind Perrine, before suddenly darting in that direction.

Still confused as to what was going on, Perrine followed, keeping her gun trained on the Neuroi ahead of her. "This is such a bad idea" she thought to herself, but something compelled her to follow the Neuroi anyway. After about twenty minutes of flying, the Neuroi came to a stop. Perrine looked around, but other than the Neuroi, there was nothing to see. The Neuroi raised its arms, and Perrine looked upwards, and a soundless roar filled her ears. The world went black.

* * *

><p>As her sight returned, Perrine realized they were no longer alone. In fact, she was in the middle of a raging battle. The previously empty blue sky was no longer empty, and no longer blue. A strange teal sky, meeting an orange colored ocean, and in this sky, Neuroi were engaged in battle. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of Neuroi, of all shapes and sizes, from the human shaped ones like the one she had followed, up to ones the size of battleships. But that was only the least of it, they weren't fighting witches, or even fighter planes, they were fighting monsters. The creatures looked like some sort of wingless dragon, all teeth and scales and claws, but they still seemed capable of flight. They were mostly the same size, perhaps a bit larger than a human, though far in the distance she thought she saw something that may have been a larger non-Neuroi creature. But if there were thousands of Neuroi, there were tens of thousands of these monsters.<p>

As these realizations rushed through her head, Perrine realized she was in the middle of this mess, and right then, several of the creatures seemed to suddenly appear before her…and there was no way to avoid them. But brilliant red beams erupted from behind Perrine, and blew the creatures out of the sky. Perrine turned to see the Neuroi who had led her here. She raised her gun and returned the favor by shooting down a creature that had appeared behind the Neuroi. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank you." The Neuroi didn't visibly respond, but Perrine somehow felt…embarrassment? That couldn't be right. Regardless, she was stuck here for now, and it seemed the Neuroi weren't going to fight her, and they seemed more approachable than the monsters at least. "Well, let's get to this, shall we?"

* * *

><p>The battle seemed to last for hours without end, though Perrine knew it couldn't have been that long. She and her Neuroi had fought back to back, covering each other as they took out the seemingly never ending supply of monsters. The rest of the Neuroi fought just as hard, yet it seemed, as hard as it was to believe, that the Neuroi were losing. As she let out a burst of fire, taking out one of the monsters, she saw a massive Neuroi, at least the size of the <em>Akagi<em> itself, become swarmed with the monsters, and explode as they reached its core.

Her Neuroi friend was firing beams constantly, and seemed inexhaustible, which Perrine most certainly was not. But it, her, constant presence had become comforting and reassuring, something for Perrine to hold on to as she fought for her life as she never had before. But then, as Perrine turned to take out a monster that had appeared over the Neuroi's shoulder, one of them slipped through the Neuroi's web of beams, and Perrine watched in horror as the stabbing horn shot through the Neuroi's chest and out its back, destroying the red gem that formed its core.

"No…noooooooooooooooooo!" Perrine screamed as her companion, her friend, exploded into a million shards of light. Dropping her Bren, she grabbed her rapier from the scabbard on her Striker Unit, and charged at the monster which had killed the Neuroi. She sliced right through the monster's head, yanked the sword out, and sliced off a forelimb from another. A black fluid coated her sword, and spattered onto her face. Raising her sword above her head, she gathered her magic power, "Tonnerre!" brilliant blue lighting crackled from her body and gathered into the point of her sword, finally discharging into a huge blast of electricity, which took out dozens of the surrounding monsters. The burst of magic left Perrine winded, and a monster that had survived the discharge leapt at her, and she looked up to see its tooth filled maw descending towards her…


	4. The Girls of the Sky

**Chapter 4: The Girls of the Sky**

The three girls sped through the teal colored sky, rapidly being stained orange by the setting sun. Fate and Mami were trying to digest the information Evangeline had just given them. "You really think we are all from separate, parallel universes? I know that the many-worlds theory is generally accepted, but no one has ever been able to break through the universe walls, even with the best Midchildan technology." Fate's tone was questioning, but not accusative. Mami had remained fairly quiet during the conversation.

"Oh its certainly possible. I was involved in some research on the subject a few decades past. There was a project to…well, that's not important right now. The upshot of it is that we managed to break through to other universes, we even contacted some mages on the other sides. That's how I know about Midchilda and your TSAB, one of the universes had Earth as a major TSAB administered world." Fate gave a startled expression at that. "I guess that's not your universe then, but probably one fairly close. As for you," Evangeline turned her head towards Mami, flying to her left and slightly behind, "if you are what I think you are, you need to be careful. Just fair advice. All is not what it seems in your world." Mami gulped at that, but didn't inquire further.

"Are we heading to that disturbance up ahead?" Fate asked, breaking the awkward silence. "We just barely survived that last battle, and that was a skirmish compared to what I'm starting to feel up ahead."

"Well, we won't get any answers just by running away, will we? And something tells me that we weren't brought here by accident, and we may not be the only ones brought here. After all, if that's a battle we're sensing, there must be two sides…"

* * *

><p>Elise bit off a curse as she barely dodged a barrage of crimson energy beams. The worst part was that they weren't even aimed at her! The battle she'd found herself dropped into was between two groups of…things she'd never seen before. Some truly horrifying lizard monsters, and these black crystalline…ships? People? She had no idea. But only the lizards had actively attacked her thus far, while the crystals had avoided attacking her directly. And of course that didn't even get into just where this battle was. She'd been on a routine patrol for WORM activity, when her Sonic Diver had been engulfed in darkness, and emerged in the middle of the raging battle, in a teal sky, above an orange sea. An alarm jolted her back to awareness of her surroundings, and a quick laser blast took out a lizard that was charging towards her. "Thanks, Bach", she murmured, a window popped up in the corner of her HUD, showing three more of the creatures on her six. "Oh now that's just not good."<p>

Looking around, she saw a huge black crystal creature, as big as an aircraft carrier, red beams blasting outwards all across its hull. "That could work, Bach, show me the beam emitters on the large one at three o'clock", a schematic of the creature/vessel, with a line of hexes glowing bright red appeared. Banking to port, she poured on the acceleration, weaving around the beams, and pulling in close to the hull, she skimmed over its surface, a quick glance in the rear camera showed the plan had worked, the monsters had either fled or been blown out of the sky. As she emerged from the shadow of the vessel, a new contact bloomed on her radar. Showing as an orange unknown, meaning it wasn't the crystals or the lizards. "Bach, mark the unknown contact, maybe we have someone here who can help. If nothing else, it can't be worse, right?"

As the contact came closer, Elise activated the telescopic camera, and was shocked at what she saw. It was a girl, about her age, maybe a bit older, flying in the sky. That wasn't too shocking, considering that she was doing that exact same thing, except the girl didn't have a Sonic Diver frame, she seemed to have…something attached to her legs, whatever they were, they seemed to be what was allowing her to fly. "How curious", she muttered under her breath. She also realized that the unknown girl was fighting in concert with one of the crystalline creatures, one that was shaped like a human. In fact, it seemed to have even replicated the devices on the other girl's legs. Still several kilometers away, Elise was helpless to stop what happened next, as a monster broke through the pair's defense, and the black crystal girl exploded, just like she'd seen happen to the larger crystal vessels. The other girl, whom she could now see had long blonde hair, and was wearing a blue uniform of some sort, went nuts, and pulled out a sword, "Bach, faster!" Elise yelled.

As Elise poured on every ounce of speed she could muster, a massive electrical blast washed over her, somehow emitted by the blonde girl. As the system disruption passed, Elise realized that almost all the creatures around the other girl had been destroyed, except for one. "Bach! A-Mode!" Elise's Sonic Diver transformed from its cruising mode into battle mode. "MV Lanze!" Elise grabbed the weapon as it shot from its holster, and let it fly with all the force she could muster. "Please make it!" the lance spun through the air, and reached the creature as it was a bare meter from the other girl. It struck right behind the neck, and sliced its head clean off. The lance began its return trip, but Elise had continued on a full speed, and grabbed it as it barely turned around. Turning to the girl, who was busy wiping black gore from her glasses, "are you all right?"

* * *

><p>Perrine knew she was going to die. There was no way around it. She was out of ammo, and there was no way she could muster enough energy to stop that monster. It couldn't be more than 6 feet from her now. She could see right down its massive maw, a row of sharp teeth coming her way. Unable to look away, she had the faint impression of something spinning, and then blackness.<p>

After a few moments, Perrine realized that the blackness was just that she couldn't see. Quickly wiping her glasses with her fingers, she saw a figure in front her her. At first she thought it was another witch, until she realized that they weren't wearing a Striker Unit. Instead, it was a girl, her age, maybe a bit younger, strapped into some sort of…armature. It reminded her of a Warlock, of all things. She realized the girl was saying something.

"Are you all right? Is everything ok?" The girl spoke with a distinct Karlsland accent, but she had no trouble understanding her.

"Oh, yes. Thank you, I thought I was a goner." Perrine examined the girl closer, she had long blonde hair, much like her own, and was wearing what looked like a white and green one-piece swimsuit. On her head was what looked at first like a set of familiar's ears, but on second look, were some sort of decoration. In fact, the girl didn't seem to be using magic at all. So how did that…whatever it was, work? Perrine realized she was staring, "once again, thank you. My name is Perrine H. Clostermann, Flying Officer in the Gallian Free Air Force, currently assigned to the 501st Joint Fighter Wing."

The girl's expression seemed somewhat confused, which is strange, what was so odd about what she'd said? But she composed herself quickly. "I'm just glad you're ok, Perrine. I'm Elise von Dietrich, assigned to the Anti-WORM Destroyer _Koryuu_, and this is my Sonic Diver, Bachstelze." The girl gestured with her arms, which caused the arms of her…Sonic Diver to also move.

Perrinne had the sinking feeling that things had just gotten even more complicated.


	5. Azure Tears

**Chapter 5: Azure Tears**

Elise had no idea what the "Free Gallian Air Force" or the "501st Joint Fighter Wing" was, but the girl in front of her was clearly French, but that didn't explain the strange devices on her legs, or what either of them was doing here. "Perrine, I can call you Perrine, right?", the girl nodded, having taken out a handkerchief and assiduously scrubbing the black gore off her glasses and face, "I really have no idea what is going on, but we seem to be in this together, so I think we should join up, and maybe try to find out if there is anyone else here. Maybe someone one of us knows also got brought over."

"I don't know if any of my comrades were brought over, but the Neuroi certainly were, and I don't know if that's good or bad." Perrine put her glasses back on and saw the confused expression on Elise's face.

"Whats a Neuroi?"

"How can you not know what a Neuroi is? They've been attacking us for years now! They conquered Europe, Karlsland is still occupied!" Perrine couldn't believe the girl could be so ignorant.

"What? That's impossible. The world was devastated by the WORMs of course, but I've never seen these Neuroi before. And whats Karlsland?" Elise was starting to realize that she and Perrine were talking past each other. "Whatever. That's not important. What we need to do is…" she was cut off by a figure descending next to them. It was another of the human shaped Neuroi. It was "looking" directly at Perrine and…though Elise may have imagined it, it seemed to give a slight nod. It then looked back and forth between Elise and Perrine, and raised an arm, pointing back towards the battle, which had largely moved away from their current position.

"You…you want us to go over there?" Perrine was a bit hesitant at first, but brought herself under control. The Neuroi looked at Perrine again, and then turned its head to face the same direction it was pointing. And with that, it flew off back to the main battle area. "Well, the Neuroi wants our help for some reason. The one that brought me here seemed to want my assistance as well. Do you think we should check it out?"

"Well, I unfortunately don't have any better ideas, except for just leaving. But somehow I think that that would be a bad decision." Elise looked straight into Perrine's eyes, and could tell she thought the same thing. "Besides, if those Neuroi really are your enemy, and they went out of their way to bring us here to help, those monsters must be bad news. We should try to find a way to stop them." Perrine nodded agreement at that. "Are you ok to go now?"

"I'm fine. I just needed a few minutes to rest." Perrine hefted her Bren from behind her back, and after checking the ammo, nodded to Elise. "Lets go." Taking off in the direction the Neuroi had indicated. Elise transformed Bachstelze into Glider mode and followed after her new friend.

* * *

><p>"Incoming fire" Bardiche's dispassionate announcement startled the trio as they flew westward. "Origin bearing 13.23 degrees, elevation 45.90 degrees."<p>

"Wide Area Protection!" the girls came to a halt in midair, Fate erecting a barrier right as the incoming beams arrived. The glowing blue bolts bounced harmlessly off the golden barrier. "There!" pointing upwards and off to the side, they see their assailant descending towards them, a glowing sword in hand.

"Fate, you come with me. Mami, stay back and provide covering fire." Evangeline called over her shoulder. Mami and Fate affirmed their understanding. "_Ensis Exsequens!_" a beam of pure light emerged from Evangeline's right hand, as she and Fate rushed up to meet the oncoming enemy, as Mami began firing her muskets from behind…

* * *

><p>As Perrine and Elise skirted the edges of the battle, they realized that it was not going well for the Neuroi. There were far fewer of the black crystalline creatures, and just as many, if not more of the strange lizard-dragons. "I've never seen this many Neuroi in one place, and to see them being defeated so easily is terrifying", Perrine's voice was quiet, but Elise could hear her clearly. "I hope that whatever these creatures are, they stay in this place. Wherever we are."<p>

Elise had to agree, even the worst of the battles against the WORMs paled before this conflict. They were still struggling against the WORMs, these monsters may be too much for the beleaguered forces of the world. "Perrine, look over where the battle is, deep inside. Do you see what looks like some sort of opening? Or rift? Maybe that's where those monsters are coming from."

Perrine peered in the direction Elise indicated, cursing to herself that she couldn't enhance her vision as much as others, "its hard for me to see, but I think you may be right, though I don't know what we could do about it. Wait a minute, I think I just saw a green flash. That wasn't a Neuroi beam, there may be someone else in there. We need to go help them out!" She looked over to Elise, flying next to her. She nodded in agreement. Together they banked towards the battle, wondering just what they would find.

* * *

><p>The monsters were definitely winning the battle, there were very few Neuroi left, mostly just large ones, which were being swarmed in turn by creatures. Elise and Perrine had run into a large group that had just finished off a battleship sized Neuroi, and were currently trying to cut their way through them. "Elise, we need to do something to clear a path!" Perrine yelled out as a creature hit the shield she'd just erected, stopping it long enough for her to put a burst of fire through its head. She looked over to Elise, who blasted two of the creatures with Bach's arm mounted laser cannons.<p>

"I agree, but what can we do? You can't use that area attack again yet can you?" Perrine grimaced and shook her head. "Then we'll just have to do it the hard way. They dodged and weaved, pressing ever forward, though it seemed that every creature shot down had two take its place. Suddenly, a shadow passed over the afternoon sun, and both girls looked upwards to see what the cause was. Perrine gasped

"It's a hive! What's a Neuroi hive doing here!" The shock in her voice was palpable. A massive discharge from the hive blasted hundreds, thousands of the creatures into oblivion, Perrine and Elise managed to avoid being hit through sheer luck. Many more Neuroi descended from the hive, along with three truly massive ones, the likes of which Perrine had never seen before. "My god. They're the size of islands! That's impossible! Nothing can be that big!" Elise was as awestruck as Perrine. Even the most massive WORMs she'd fought were nowhere near the size of those monstrosities. Their shock at the sight distracted them, and they almost didn't notice the half dozen creatures who came up behind them until Bach's proximity alarm sounded.

"Perrine, behind you!" Perrine spun around, rapier whistling from is sheathe, sparks flying as it intercepted the claw strike that was about to hit. Elise had similarly taken out her lance, and had already used it to take out another creature, but more were coming. Suddenly, four blasts of green energy erupted into their vision, each one striking a creature, destroying them. She saw that the beams had come from four blue objects, that were flying through the sky in a strange, stop and start motion. They pivoted and fired again, taking out the remaining creatures in the immediate area. They then flew upwards, towards a shape Perrine could see descending from in front of the sun.

The objects docked onto the wings of what was clearly a human shape, a blue machine of some sorts, about the size of Elise's Sonic Diver, but as different from Bachstelze as Bachstelze was from Perrine's Strikers. The unknown machine was being piloted by another girl, who's apparent height and obvious endowments marked her as older than either Perrine or Elise. Long blonde hair fell over her shoulders, with curls forming in towards the ends. She smiled, "hello, my name is Cecilia Alcott, representative candidate for the United Kingdom", the crisp British accent cut through the air, "you wouldn't happen to know what is going on, would you?"

Perrine and Elise looked at each other and sighed.


	6. The Fairy Dances Beneath the Moons

**Chapter 6: The Fairy Dances Beneath the Moons**

Before Elise and Perinne could properly introduce themselves to their new companion, a wave of the monsters fell upon them. Quickly however they realized that Cecilia was a good addition to the team, her machine was focused on ranged combat, so they let her use her remote weapons to pick off incoming monsters, while Perrine and Elise used their melee weapons to take out the leakers. All three had trained as part of a team, and while they were no longer on the same teams, the training came back, and they soon fell into a groove.

The Neuroi fleet which had arrived right when they met Cecilia finally started pushing back the monsters, and after what felt like hours, the area seemed to be clear, for the moment. The girls floated in the sky, looking towards the setting sun. "My name is Perrine, Perrine H. Clostermann, and this is Elise"…

"Elise von Dietrich" Elise interjected. The two formally introduced themselves to Cecilia, and as they'd expected, she didn't recognize their machines or their backgrounds. They shook hands with each other, Perrine noted how unlike Elise's Sonic Diver, Cecilia's "Infinte Stratos" as she'd called it was worn more like a striker, but with extra parts covering part of the upper body, and with wings, which were oddly not actually attached to the rest of the machine.

"It seems that none of us are from the same place or time, Perrine continued, "and I have a feeling that we're no longer on Earth, of any sort."

"Well, I think we can confirm that now," Cecilia said, pointing off to the east. Perrine and Elise looked where she was pointing, and saw that in the darkened sky, no fewer than three moons had risen. A brilliant white one, similar to the moon they knew, though with a different crater patter, and two others, much smaller, but just as bright, one a crimson red, and the other a sapphire blue. Despite the sun finally having set, the triple moons gave off more than enough light to continue to see by.

"Well, lets put this to the side for the moment," Cecilia bringing them back around to the most pressing subject. "Perrine, you said that one of those Neuroi guided you here?" Perrine nodded, "but Elise, nothing like that happened to you?" Elise nodded at that as well. "Interesting, like Elise, I was dragged here with no warning, I was actually out doing an independent training run, when I suddenly found myself here in the middle of a battle. That reminds me, right when I came across you two, more of those Neuroi showed up, along with three absolutely enormous ones. I wonder what happened with them?"

After a short discussion, they decided to investigate the rifts Elise had seen, and they headed off back towards the battle. As they approached, they saw that massive numbers of Neuroi and the creatures were fighting around the giant Neuroi fortresses. "Perrine, doesn't it look like the Neuroi are heading for those rifts?" The rifts Elise had seen were now clearly visible, three of them, forming something like a loose triangle, their open maws darker than the night sky, as if inside them wasn't darkness, but an absence. Cecilia had come to a stop and was using the sight of her IS's beam cannon as a telescope. "Yes, they are definitely headed towards the rifts. In fact, one of the fortresses is about to enter a rift."

As they watched, the massive Neuroi began to enter the rift, which was even larger than the almost inconceivably huge flying fortress. Even as it entered, uncountable number of beams licked out from its surface, blowing away the monsters that tried to approach it. The fortress was by now halfway inside the rift, and was coming to a halt. As the girls watched, space around the rift seemed to twist, and suddenly the Neuroi appeared to contract slightly, and then it detonated. As the massive explosion propagated among its length, the rift became visibly unstable, and then it detonated as well. A distortion flew out from the rift, and wiped out everything in a wedge of the sky within the view of the rift. Neuroi and monster alike were shredded by the distortion. The shockwave of its passing buffeted the girls, even though they were well to the side and below the plane of the rifts. "My god, they're trying to seal the rift and they are going to sacrifice an entire hive to do so. What in the world is going on?" Perrine had never seen Neuroi acting like this. No one had.

As the second fortress Neuroi approached the rift, the girls scurried over to the cleared area from the first blast, and watched as the event unfolded again, and like that, 2/3 of the sky was cleared. "Well, it looks like these Neuroi are solving the problem for us," Cecilia's voice had a confident tone. "Though I wonder why they went to the effort of brining us here if they could handle it." As they spoke, the third and final fortress approached the last rift, something shocking happened. Out of the rift came a massive arm, it looked nothing like the monsters, it was almost…plant like, made up of massive green vines. And following the arm was a head, a maw of endless blackness. From the mouth a massive blast of energy erupted, striking straight through the Neuroi fortress, which exploded into countless shards of light. The beam also took out uncountable numbers of smaller Neuroi and monsters. But the Rift was still there, with this new creature watching over it. "Perrine, Elise, I…think we may have a problem…" Cecilia tried to make her tone light, but the terror in her voice was palpable.

Right then, another rift opened, this one much smaller than the others, and out came something completely unexpected, a robot. A rather large robot at that, its red and gold color scheme and undeniably feminine design giving it a rather incongruous look. "That's...not a Neuroi, or a monster, what is it?" Perrine spoke without thinking, but Cecilia and Elise were clearly having the same thoughts. Their radio's crackled as a transmission came over an open frequency.

* * *

><p>"Steel 2, come in Steel 2. This is Fairy 1. Fairy 2, are you receiving? Assault 1, SRX 1, is anyone receiving?" Shine was trying to get her bearings, the continued battles against the Einst-like creatures after the Swordian incident was resolved had prompted a major battle around Aviano base, and Riksent's forces had been called to assist the <em>Hagane<em> and _Hiryuu Kai_'s squadrons. She'd personally led her forces to the battle. It had been going well, but suddenly her instruments had gone dark, and she found herself here. Wherever she was, it wasn't earth, if the three moons she saw in the sky were any indication. Her attention snapped back to the com as a voice came over it.

"Fairy 1, this is Cecilia Alcott, IS Blue Tears, who are you?" Shine searched her display for the source of the transmission, and was shocked as her display zoomed in on three girls floating in the air. Each had some sort of device equipped, but they were so different, ranging from one girl who seemed to have propellers on her legs, to another strapped into some sort of exoskelletal frame. And then she saw what was behind them. Impossible!

"Cecilia Alcott, my name is Shine Hausen of the Dukedom of Riksent, where are we, and why is there a Regisseur here?" Shine could not understand how that could be here, it wasn't one of the false Einst that had started to appear, it was a true Einst Regisseur, and its existence was impossible.

"We…aren't really sure where we are, and I've never heard of a 'Regisseur', but there has been an ongoing battle between two major forces, and we've been caught in the middle. The force that seemed to be nominally the one to favor was winning, but that massive creature appeared and stopped them. Almost all of both forces has been destroyed, but we must close that rift!" Cecilia paused to take a breath, and Elise suddenly interrupted.

"Shine, my name is Elise, I'm not sure who you are, but you seem to know what that creature is, I've had my Sonic Diver running an analysis, and I think there is a way to close the rift, but we have to take out that Regisseur you mentioned to do it." Shine pondered what the girls had said, as she could see the three of them conferring. Then she noticed the W-I3NK System's display was indicating a possible connection. Impossible! The other Fairlion was unknowable dimensions away. She called up the display, and was astounded to see it showing schematics of two of the machines out there. 'Cecilia Alcott: IS Blue Tears' and 'Elise von Dietrich: SD Bachstelze'.

"Cecilia, Elise, I…think I may have a plan. It seems my system can interface with yours, and if so, we have a fighting chance. Unfortunately I can't seem to interface with your friend there, its like…does she even have a computer on her machine?"

"Shine, my name is Perrine Clostermann, don't worry about me for now, I'll cover you all from behind, my abilities aren't purely technological like the three of you."

Elise's voice broke in, "after we take out that large creature, we can execute my plan. The fact that the three of us can interface will help tremendously, and I've worked out a way to integrate Perrine into the second part. So what is your plan?" Shine briefly relayed what she knew of the Regisseur, and how they could get it out of the way. With everyone clear, the foursome headed off towards the remaining rift, and the last remnants of the enemy forces.

They approached the rift, a few Neuroi still miraculously remained, but even as they watched, they fell to the creatures, which still outnumbered them greatly. "Cecilia, Elise, are you ready?" Shine looked at their faces on the display, they seemed nervous, but they were hardly alone in that. "Perrine, be ready to follow us in for Elise's side of the operation." They hadn't been able to rig a visual, but they'd managed to get an audio connection to the unusual 'Witch" as she'd called herself. Her displays indicated they'd reached the appointed spot to kick off the operation. Shine's cockpit reconfigured, moving her into a standing position. "Connection to IS Blue Tears and SD Bachstelze established. W-I3NK System, Trinity Mode. ENGAGE!" The last words were echoed by Cecilia and Elise as the three machines shot off into the melee, towards the massive head of the Regisseur.

Cecilia couldn't believe the freedom. The information being sent to her by Shine allowed her to operate beyond her wildest imaginations. She'd never been able to use the Tears and the Sniper Cannon at the same time, but now she was controlling all four Tears, and with a degree of control she'd thought impossible, while also taking careful aim with the cannon. She used the Tears to keep the creatures at bay, while the cannon scored hits on critical parts of the Regisseur, as shown by the data from the W-I3NK System. She could sense a similar freedom from Elise in Bachstelze, using her lance and cannons at will, never missing a shot. And then there was Shine. Her machine, her 'Fairlion' she'd called it, was dancing through the sky, the light of the moons reflecting off it. The three cut a swath through the remaining creatures, and found to their shock the remaining Neuroi falling into formation with Perrine.

"Cecilia, now!" At Shine's order, Cecilia let lose everything she had straight at the head of the Regisseur, and all the Neuroi followed suit. The blast threw its head back, and Shine's Fairlion shot forward. "SHIIIIIIIIIIINE SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRKKK!" her scream resounded in Cecilia's ears, as an energy field enveloped the robot. It accelerated faster and faster, and struck the exact spot Cecilia and the Neuroi's beams had hit, right in the middle of its forhead. Shine's Fairlion emerged from behind the Regisseur, which was…falling back into the rift. It seemed to be trying to pull itself back out, even with a massive hole in its head, but the remaining Neuroi charged forward, sacrificing themselves to force it back into the rift. Cecilia saw Elise and Perrine take up their positions around the rift.

"Elise! Now!"


	7. An Angel Descends

**Chapter 7: An Angel Descends**

Even as Shine spoke the words, Elise was already beginning to act. "QUADRA FORMATION!" beams of light shot out of Bachstelze, reaching out to Shine's Fairlion and Cecilia's Blue Tears, and then from each of them, the beams reemerged and converged on Perrine. "QUADRA LOCK!" the rift, surrounded by the beams of light, began to fluctuate, and then flowed upwards, as the beams formed into a pyramidal shape. The amorphous mass of darkness flowed within the barrier they had created. "Everyone, open fire!" Elise began blasting the rift with Bach's laser cannons.

"Vostock Laser!" A massive shaft of light blasted out of the chest of the Fairlion, "Rolling Cannon!" the energy cannons mounted on the Fairlion's head also began pouring bolts of energy into the rift.

"Blue Tears, FULL BURST!" Cecilia opened fire with all of Blue Tear's weapons, beams from the remote Tears, the energy sniper rifle, and a barrage of missiles.

Perrine gathered all the magic power she had left, and lifted her rapier into the sky. Electricity crackled around her, she lowered her sword, pointing it at the rift. "TONNERRE…ÉCLAMENT!" a brilliant blue bolt connected between Perrine and the Rift, more energy than she'd ever dreamed of channeling.

As more and more energy poured into the rift, it churned faster and faster within the barrier, until finally, it exploded. The barrier turned brilliant white, brighter than the sun, for just an instant. And then it was gone. And the sky was empty except for the four girls. All the Neuroi and all the monsters were gone.

"Whoo hoo! It worked!" Elise's excited shout crackled over the radio link. "Cecilia, Perrine! We did it!" Elise looked around, "Perrine? Are you there?" She looked over and saw Perrine bobbing in the sky, suddenly the glowing propellers on her striker unit flickered, and went out. "Perrine!" Elise screamed as the other girl plummeted out of the sky…

* * *

><p>Mami squinted, trying to see what was going on in the melee up ahead. She was using her rifles to provide covering fire, but the three combatants were so mixed up she didn't think she was being much help. She had yet to even get a good look at who the enemy was. It was just flashes of yellow and blue and white as the blades of the fighters clashed.<p>

As she continued firing, she realized that something was touching her ankle. Looking down, she saw some sort of golden cord wrapped around her left leg. Before she could react, it gave a violent tug and she found herself being pulled out of the sky. "Oh, this is not good". And then she hit the trees.

* * *

><p>Perrine slowly opened her eyes. Trying to remember where she was. She had been fighting, fighting for what felt like days. Then she remembered, the Neuroi and the monsters, the rifts, those other three girls. Her head was resting on something soft, it felt familiar somehow…her eyes were finally open and focusing, though she still couldn't see. "Glasses…glasses" she reached her arm out and around, and her hand grabbed something soft. She squeezed and a voice squeaked a bit.<p>

"Now now, those aren't your glasses. Here you go." Her glasses slipped into place, and she realized she was laying on someone's lap. And her right hand was currently grabbing that person's breasts. Perrine felt herself flush red and she snapped her arm down. She tried to sit up, but a hand held her down. "Hold on, you've had a rough day. You fought longer and harder than the rest of us, so lay down for a little while longer." Cecilia, that's who this has to be, the Brittanian with the sniper rifle.

"Is she awake now?" A voice Perrine didn't recognize called out.

"Yes, she just woke up. She seemed a bit confused at first, but that's understandable." Cecilia looked back down at Perrine and smiled gently. "Did you two find it?"

"Yes, it was right where the sensors said it would be," the voice, which Perrine realized had to belong to the fourth person, Shine, continued, "it's not too far away, we can walk there in about 10 minutes. Do you think she can walk now?"

"I'm fine. I can get up now." Perrine forced herself upright, though her head suddenly felt like it had expanded to several times its size. She shook it a bit and looked up. Elise and someone she'd never seen before stood before her. The girl, Shine, was shockingly young. If she'd been in the 501st she'd have been one of the youngest members of the team. She was had blonde hair done up in a set of buns on the sides of her head, with curly streamers of hair hanging down from them. She was wearing some sort of pilot suit, pink and red, which seemed to have been tailored to resemble a ballet tutu. She looked at the other girls, seeing them clearly for the first time, and without their machines in the way. Elise was wearing a thin, green and white leotard, with green thighhighs, her suit had some sort of short tail emerging from the back, and that, along with the ear-like decoration on her head made her look remarkably like a witch. Cecilia was dressed similarly, wearing what looked to be one of the dark blue Fuso undergarments, with thighhighs of the same color. "Where are we going?" She looked around and saw her jacket lying over a log, they must have taken it off her, leaving her in just her shirt and stockings. She reached for the jacket.

"Oh, you can leave that behind, you'll just be taking it off when we get there." Elise broke in. "I found a place where we can clean up. We're kinda grimy." She smiled at that, and Perrine realized that Elise still had black smudges over her face, and if Elise looked that bad, she herself was probably even worse.

"You said it's a ten minute walk? Hold on." Perrine stripped off her stockings. She noticed the other girls giving her a strange look. "I don't have my shoes with me, and I don't want to rip up the bottom of the stockings if I can avoid it." Perrine wondered why they were giving her such an odd look, even without the stockings and shirt, she was still more dressed than Cecilia or Elise! Elise and Shine looked at each other and shrugged, and turned, motioning the others to follow.

A brief ten minutes later, and the girls found themselves looking at a natural hot springs, cutting into the side of a cliff inside the forest near the beach they'd landed on. They quickly stripped off their clothes and slipped into the water. "Oh this feels so good" Perrine stretched her arms over her head. They'd arranged themselves in a rough semicircle, with Cecilia and Shine on either end and Perrine and Elise in the middle. After a few minutes of quietly working the grime off of themselves, they all settled back in to soak for a while. Perrine noticed Elise not too subtly staring at at Cecilia's chest. "Oh not another one" she muttered to herself. She resolved long ago to quit obsessing over girls with larger breasts than her own.

"So, what exactly is going on here? I was the last to arrive, so I'm really not sure what to think of all this." Shine broke the silence, "anyway, as I said, my name is Shine Hausen, of the Dukedom of Riksent." They went through the introductions again, "well, this is very strange. We are all clearly from different dimensions. That's not unheard of, but very unusual." Shine noticed that the other girls were giving her somewhat boggled looks. "I guess you don't have any experience with this, do you? Well, considering how different our universes are, that's not really a surprise. But that must be what happened. We were all brought from our universes into this one, but while we are all from some version of Earth, this is clearly not Earth." Shine gestured at the unusual trees surrounding the hot springs, and at the triple moons, just visible between the trees. "And those creatures, some were from Perrine's world, right?" Perrine nodded, "while that large creature, the Regisseur, is something I recognized from my universe. However those other creatures, none of you recognized them either, did you?" Everyone else shook their heads. "They may be the key to all of this. We should also see if there has been anyone else brought here," a sudden growling sound interrupted her. Perrine's face had turned bright red.

"Sorry, its just…I haven't eaten since before I went out on patrol, and I used up a lot of magic power today." Perrine sunk down deeper into the water, trying to hide her embarrassment.

Shine giggled a bit, and stepped out of the water, coming back holding a box. "I thought we'd all be pretty hungry by now", as she slipped back into the water, "so I brought this. I wish I could say it was a homemade picnic lunch, but unfortunately its just military rations." She opened the box and pulled out a couple of wrapped bars, passing the box to Elise, who did the same. Each girl pulled a few out, there were probably at least twenty bars in the box, and started eating.

"Actually," Perrine said as she chewed, "this isn't bad. Better than most rations I've had to eat." Elises grunted an agreement, while Cecilia seemed less convinced, but ate anyway.

"Mmm…these are delicious! I haven't eaten in so long." Perrine's head jerked up at the unknown voice, and she saw Shine and Elise staring in shock towards Cecilia. Perrine looked over, and saw what may just be the most beautiful girl she'd ever seen. A perfectly proportioned face, with large, deep red eyes, framed with a long mane of golden hair that was spreading out over the water. And while Perrine had long since been inured to large breasted women, this girl had possibly the largest breasts she'd ever seen, but not sagging in the slightest as they hovered just over the surface of the water. But what was truly causing the stares was what was coming out of her back, a pair of brilliant white wings, like those of an angel. As Perrine took in the strange new arrival, the arrival in question had returned to munching on one of the ration bars.

"So…excuse me, but who are you?" Cecilia spoke the words the others were thinking. "When did you get here?"

"Oh, my name is Astraea. Close Combat Angeloid Type Delta, Astraea." The words came out between bites on the bar. "I don't know when I got here, exactly. I was flying around looking for food, when all of a sudden I was over some strange forest. That was several hours ago. I heard you guys and came down when I saw you were eating. I was soooo hungry." Astraea grabbed another bar from the box and tore into it. "So, who are you guys? This doesn't look like Synapse or the lower world."

Yet another round of introductions began, unsurprisingly, Astraea knew nothing of the worlds the others came from. They talked for a while longer about themselves and the worlds they came from, when all of a sudden Astraea grabbed Cecilia and threw her over to the other side of the hot spring, to the surprise of the rest of the girls.

The girls started at Astraea's sudden action, but moments later a flash of red sliced between them, and a woman in red appeared, her sword buried in the earth right behind where Cecilia had been sitting. Astraea had already begun her counterattack, delivering a roundhouse kick right at the woman's head, but it was blocked by the woman's arm, and their eyes met, deep red, and ice, ice blue...


	8. The Untouchable Queen

**Chapter 8: The Untouchable Queen**

Astraea leapt backwards into the air, floating above the hot spring, as blue gridlines flashed over her, materializing her clothes, along with a sword and shield. Barely a minute had passed since the unexpected assault, the shocked girls had just scrambled out of the spring and were dashing for where they left their clothes. The unknown assailant stepped fully out of the shadows, and was revealed to be a blonde woman in a long red dress holding a vicious, jagged sword in one hand . "Run!" Astraea called to the others, "go back to where you said you landed, I'll hold her off." Astraea moved back towards the red-clad woman, and they started to exchange blows.

"Try to pull her back to the beach, we can't fight effectively here," Cecilia shouted to Astraea, who after parrying a flurry of blows, ended up with the woman's boot in her stomach, sending her flying backwards. A crunching of dried leaves indicated that Shine and the others had already taken off back to the beach, not even bothering to get dressed.

"Go! I said go!" Astraea demanded as she got back to her feet, "you can't fight her here. I'll get her to the beach, but go and get your weapons." She looked over her shoulder and smiled. Cecilia bit off a curse, but grabbed her clothes and dashed into the trees. "So, its just you and me now is it?" turning back to the woman, who was making her way around the hot springs. Astraea took off into the air and struck from above, her sword blow was parried, but she bashed the woman in the head using her shield. But it didn't seem to phase her much.

"Accel Turn" the woman softly whispered and seemed to vanish, appearing behind Astraea, who barely managed to block the blow with her shield, but took a boot to the back of her knee in exchange. Managing to stay on her feet, Astraea did a high feint, and when it was blocked, planted her foot right in the woman's stomach, sending her flying into a nearby tree with devastating force. The tree cracked under the force of the impact, but the woman was unfazed, quickly back on her feet. The moment she was up, she seemed to vanish once again, using her acceleration technique.

"That won't work on my twice. Hyper Acceleration!" Astraea entered her own acceleration mode, and met the woman halfway across the clearing. The impact of their swords caused a shockwave to radiate outwards, propelling water from the hotsprings into the air around them. A faint glimmer of surprise flicked across the previously emotionless face. "They don't call me the fastest Angeloid of all for nothing!" Seemingly matched blow for blow, speed for speed, neither could gain an advantage. Across the clearing they fought, sparks of sword on sword, dull thumps of blocked kicks and shield strikes, Astraea had to admit she'd never fought an opponent so perfectly matched to her. Finally though, Astraea saw her opening, and with a twist of her arm, altered the path of her latest strike, the woman saw what she was doing, but her attempt to block it sent her slightly off balance, and Astraea's follow up back hand strike with her shield struck her square in the temple. Flung backwards, the woman landed in the hot spring, clearly slightly dazed. Astraea rushed forward and grabbed the woman from behind, and leaped into the sky.

* * *

><p>Cecilia ran through the woods, heedless of the stray branches and leaves scratching her naked skin. She burst out of the woods onto the beach where they'd made camp. She could see that Shine and the others were already getting dressed. She skidded to a halt in the pool of light being emitted by the Fairlion, and hurriedly started to pull on her IS interface suit. "Where's Astraea?" Elise was finishing pulling on her own pilot suit, calling out the question as soon as she saw Cecilia.<p>

"She's fighting that woman. They seem surprisingly well matched. I told her to pull her out here so we can help." She got her suit on, and was sliding her thighhighs up her legs. "I hope she's ok. Without her we would have been helpless there." Looking around, she saw Perrine finishing pulling on her stockings and running to where they'd placed her Striker Units, while Shine was already in her pilot suit and heading up the ascent wire to the Fairlion's cockpit. Closing her eyes, she concentrated for a moment, and felt the familiar resistance across her body as Blue Tears formed around her. "Shine, are you seeing anything on your sensors? I'm not detecting anything here."

"Hold on, yes…wait, I have two energy readings in the forest. One is at the approximate location of the hot springs, the other is further off. The reading at the hot springs is moving towards us!" Shine finished the Fairlion's activation sequence, and the external displays sprung to life. "There, over the forest, I see Astraea, she's carrying that woman." Shine zoomed the display in, just in time to see the woman apparently realize what was happening and start to struggle. Astraea was clearly trying to keep her restrained while flying, and was having a great deal of difficulty with it. She was almost over the beach now, but as she started to head downwards, the woman's arm got free, and suddenly she had her sword in her hand. The sword stabbed backwards, cutting into Astraea's side. Astraea released the woman, who fell to the ground, landing on her feet. Astraea was clearly wounded, falling onto the sand with a crash. The woman ignored the fallen Angeloid, and vanished from Shine's screen, reappearing in front of Perrine. "Perrine, watch out!"

Shine's voice boomed over the Fairlion's external speakers, but Perrine already had her sword out, her rapier was never intended to take the force from a sword the size of the one this woman wielded, but she managed to turn it aside for just a moment, giving her an opening to get airborne and out of the woman's reach. The woman stared upwards, an unreadable expression on her face, and turned to Elise, who was still strapping herself into Bachstelze. "Oh no you don't!" Cecilia yelled towards the woman, triggering a blast from her rifle, which shot right between the woman and Elise. The woman turned her attention to Cecilia.

"Tempest Turn" the words were barely audible, and suddenly the woman seemed to split into multiple copies. But Cecilia's sensors showed her what was going on. "Blue Tears, go!" the remote tears shot from their sockets on the Blue Tears' wings, and brief green shots of energy shot from them, dispelling the false afterimages. The woman, clearly surprised to see the tactic defeated, tried to stop her assault, but she'd gotten to close. Cecilia used her thusters to spin the Blue Tears, slamming the barrel of the sniper rifle right into the woman's side. The woman flew towards the ocean, landing right where the water began. Before she could stand up, Elise was there, landing Bachstelze on top of her, pinning her down. As she started to struggle, Perrine descended, holding the barrel of her Bren right at the woman's temple.

"Don't touch me." Again, barely audible. "Do. Not. Touch. Me." She was no longer struggling, but started to repeat those words over and over again. Elise looked at Perrine and shrugged.

"Cecilia!" Shine's voice rang out again, "that other signal is approaching fast, its going to emerge right here!" a mark bloomed on the map of the beach Blue Tears displayed in the corner of her vision. Cecilia realized that it was right near where Astraea had landed. Astraea was just then getting back on her feet, when something flew out of the forest and slammed right into her. It was…a girl? A blonde girl, with a bandage on one of her legs, and holding a rifle, she and Astraea flew further down towards the beach, tumbling over each other. Suddenly she realized that something else was coming out of the forest. A sudden roar from the beach caught her attention, and she saw Elise go flying off the woman in the red dress, who was now glowing with a blue light. "Cecilia, behind you!" Shine's voice sounded desperate. Cecilia spun around, but...!


	9. Golden Darkness

**Chapter 9: Golden Darkness**

Mami crashed through the trees and slammed into the ground, as pain shot through her body, she saw a glint of gold. Blocking the attack with the rifle she'd managed to keep hold of, she realized it was some sort of long, flexible blade. She looked down to see that it had sliced right through the barrel of the rifle. Tossing it aside, she leapt backwards as several more of the golden blades sliced towards her. As the blades retracted, she lifted her skirts a tiny amount, and two more rifles slipped out, driving barrel first into the ground. Grabbing them out of the ground revealed they had razor sharp foot and half long bayonet's on the ends. Dodging another set of blades, she fired one of the rifles in the general direction of the assault, and instead of the normal magic bullet, the rifle's shot exploded in a brilliant white light, illuminating the area for a second.

A few dozen yards away, a small figure flinched and raised its hand towards its eyes. Mami ran towards it, firing the second rifle, this one with a normal shot, at the figure. She missed, but she'd succeeded in distracting her assailant, and was in close, slashing with her bayonets. As one of the blades sliced towards the figure's arm, it was suddenly no longer an arm, but a sword blade, rising up to parry Mami's strike. "Oh, now that's different", Mami muttered to herself. Realizing that if one arm could turn into a weapon, so could the other, and she barely managed to parry the incoming left arm. Both combatants had both arms neutralized for a moment, which left Mami to suddenly wonder where those golden blades had come from. Her question was answered as the girl's (and it was clearly a girl, a fairly small one at that, noticeably shorter and smaller overall than Mami) hair suddenly transformed into a set of flexible blades.

Leaping backwards, Mami unleashed a storm of ribbons, in an attempt to bind the girl. Her ribbons reached for the girl's limbs, but were quickly intercepted by the golden hair blades. Mami produced more of her ribbons, but as quickly as she could generate them, they were shredded by the storm of blades. Giving up on that tactic, Mami spun in place, causing dozens of rifles to seemingly tumble out of her skirt, embedding themselves into the ground. The mystery girl dashed forward, into the field of rifles, trying to get inside Mami's range. Mami gave a grin and shot a ribbon up into the trees, where it looped around a limb and shot her upwards. As she ascended, she used the one rifle she'd grabbed to detonate the rest, the explosion engulfing the blade girl.

A streak of black and gold shot vertically out of the explosion, taking Mami by surprise as she hung from her ribbon. A slice of an arm-blade sent Mami tumbling back towards the now scorched earth, but a quick roll had her back on her feet within moments. The girl landed behind Mami, but before she could make a move, Mami ducked into a reverse sweeping kick, taking the girl off her feet. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Mami chose a direction and ran. As she ran through the forest, she heard rustling sounds above and behind her, the girl was pursuing through the tree branches.

Up ahead, Mami could begin to make out the edge of the forest, she could see a glinting, like light on water. She'd have the advantage out in the open, she pushed herself even harder, using magic to enhance her running. But she didn't make it. A rustling ahead of her presaged the girl dropping out of the branches right in front of her. The hair shot out towards her, but instead of blades they wrapped around her arms and legs, pulling her towards the girl. "Where is the key?" the soft, slightly sweet voice wasn't what you'd expect from a monster.

Mami was being held slightly off the ground, causing her to look down towards the already shorter girl. Moonlight shown through a gap in the trees, giving Mami her first good look at her assailant. The girl's face matched her voice, with delicate features and deep, liquid red eyes. Those eyes sparked something inside Mami, a memory of the last pair of red eyes she'd seen. _Fate-san?_ She thought to herself, _why is she reminding me of Fate-san?_ At the same time she noticed the girl's clothes. Black, all leather and straps and buckles. _An image flashed in her mind, of a young Fate, dressed similarly, her red eyes filled with the same longing as those of the mystery girl_. Mami shook herself out of the distracting tangent, _focus, stop projecting things onto someone you barely know. Stupid._ She returned her attention to the question the girl had asked.

"Key? What key?" Mami had no idea what the girl was talking about. She decided to try and change the subject. "Who are you?" The girl seemed surprised by the question.

"Konjiki no Yami" Her voice had gotten even softer, she almost seemed embarrassed. She'd turned her head slightly away from Mami as she spoke.

"Konjiki no Yami? Golden Darkness?" That was certainly an unusual name. "Maybe we could be friends, my name's Mami, Tomoe Mami. How about we stop and talk this out, Yami-chan?" Konjiki no Yami's head snapped back around, an expression of shock, tinged with outrage and…something else on her face. The hair ropes around her arms released, but the ones around her legs tightened, and Mami found herself being spun around, and then the binds on her legs released, and she went flying through the trees.

* * *

><p>Cecilia turned back towards the forest, right as the two blades hit her shield, one of the golden blades skittered off to the side, deflected by the shield's energy, but the second one penetrated. Cecilia instinctively moved sideways, twisting her body out of the way. The blade which had been aimed right at her chest instead slid across the armor plating below her breasts, leaving a large gash that penetrated almost to the interface suit below. As she spun and slid, she triggered a blast from her sniper rifle, which missed, but the explosion of light briefly illuminated a small figure, with the two long, flexible blades retracting back to it. Triggering a few more shots, she sped into the air, to find a way to counter this new assault. "Shine, whats going on down there?"<p>

"Astraea got hit by someone flying out of the forest, I don't know who it is, but I think she was fighting the girl who just attacked you. The woman in red suddenly exploded with some sort of power, but Perrine and Elise managed to get into the air before she could turn on them. They seem to be ignoring me, but I can't do very much. The Fairlion isn't designed for this sort of combat. I really don't want to fire on those girls." Shine sounded almost apologetic at that.

"No, I understand. We need to try to get through to them." As Cecilia pondered what to do next, the two unknown girls started to converge on Astraea and the girl who'd been flung out of the forest. "Oh that's not good at all." Cecilia triggered a few more blasts, landing between the girl with the extending hair and the other two. The girl turned and looked upwards towards Cecilia, but continued her advance. Perrine and Elise seemed to be trying to stall the woman I the red dress the same way, but with limited success. "Dammit. I don't want to shoot them."

Astraea's eyes opened. "What was that. I felt like something hit me." She felt a heavy weight on her chest, and realized there was another girl laying on top of her, their breasts pressed together. "Oh, that's what happened. Hey, are you alright?" Astraea sat up and started shaking the girl. "Hey, wake up!" she shook her harder. She realized that there was gunfire pouring down nearby. She looked around and saw the woman in red, and another girl, all in black, advancing towards her. She stood up, bringing the other girl to her feet as well. "Hey! Wake up!" The girl murmured a bit and started to open her eyes. "Are you ok? Come on, wake up. We've got a problem."

Mami became aware of a voice yelling at her. "…ey, wake up!" Her eyes flittered open, and she found herself staring into a pair of particularly large red eyes. _What was with today and red eyes?_ The pretty face they were on was slightly distorted by…worry? Fear? Shaking her head, she remembered the other girl, Yami, throwing her into the forest, and then she hit…something. The girl was still trying to get her attention, she managed to clear the fog from her head and focus. This also made her aware of other sounds, what sounded like gunfire, and flashes of light on either side, raining down from above. Looking upwards, she saw three human sized shapes, firing down onto the ground. She realized they were more girls, wearing some sort of flying armors. And their targets…that girl, Yami-chan, and another girl, in a red dress, glowing with a blue light. "I think I understand now," she pulled away from the girl in front of her, wavering a bit, but then standing firm, "we seem to be on the same side. Which one do you want?"

The girl smiled "I have something to settle with the one in red, I think you have the same with the one in black, no?" With that she turned, and with a flap of the wings on her back, dashed towards the girl in the red dress. Mami looked upwards, and a girl with brilliant blue eyes, wearing blue armor looked down and nodded. The girl let loose a massive blast with her cannon, raising dust and sand into the air. Pulling several bayoneted rifles out of her skirt, Mami dashed into the cloud of dust.

Two battles raged across the beach, Astraea fought the woman in red, their movements so swift that Perrine and Elise could do nothing but watch, barely able to follow their movements. Their swords were blurs, reaching out with strikes, parries and feints. Blows blocked with the slightest of movements, strikes landing, but not hitting home hard enough to stop either combatant. Several times both seemed to split into multiple copies, like the Fuso Ninja the Major had spoken of once in lore. Perrine and Elise turned to each other, at a loss for what to do.

Mami and Cecillia fought Yami, the open beach favoring their ranged attacks. They used their guns to keep Yami's hair busy blocking, while Mami would dart in to land strikes with her bayonets. But even when she did land hits, they seemed to seal up immediately, never bleeding, just an open wound, which would heal together before their eyes. Even her clothes mended themselves, as if they were a part of her body as well. Both battles seemed to be stalemates, neither side capable of gaining an advantage. Mami was never more than a middling closer range fighter at best, and even with the support of the blue eyed girl above, she wasn't accomplishing very much. Oh what she wouldn't give to have Kyouko here with her! That sudden thought, of the red haired girl, almost caused her to miss blocking a hair-blade. _Dammit, I shouldn't keep letting myself get distracted. And why did I have to think of her, I haven't thought about her in months_. She shook the thoughts away, pouring more fire at the girl, Yami-chan. Somehow she knew they shouldn't be fighting, that they were all supposed to be on the same side. But all she could do for now was fight, and hope they could find a way to get through to Yami-chan and the woman in red.

Alarms wailed on Bachstelze and the Fairlion. They indicated a massive energy signature in the distance. A brilliant beam of light suddenly shot straight down the middle of the battlefield, bisecting the beach, barely missing the Fairlion, now hovering over the combatants. The beam impacted right where the beach met the water, creating a massive explosion of sand and steam. Both battles paused for a moment, the woman in red and Yami making eye contact for the first time and nodding to each other. As the light from the beam faded away, a figure could be seen in the crater, getting to its feet. In either hand it held golden swords, the hilts connected by a rope of pure golden light. "Fate-san!" Mami realized who it was as the dust cleared. Fate's outfit had changed, no longer the dark blue skirt and jacket, she was now wearing a jet black leotard, with black gloves and thighhighs. Her hair streamed behind her as a gust of wind blew across the battle scarred beach.

"Mami!" Fate recognized her companion, "watch out! She's coming!" As she said the words, a massive robot materialized with a burst of light and fell a few feet to the ground. Multiple times the size of the Fairlion, it was a gray and green colossus. Yami and the woman in red nodded to each other again, and dashed towards Fate, as the robot opened fire…


	10. Eternal Soldier

**Chapter 10: Eternal Soldier**

Fate and Evangeline engaged the unknown figure. It was a woman, holding a glowing beam sword in one hand. A few blasts from Mami's rifles shot past them, but the woman parried them effortlessly. Fate made a low horizontal slash with Bardiche, but the woman blocked it with her sword. Evangeline simultaneously struck downwards with the blade of light on her hand, but right as she was about to hit, the woman vanished in a burst of blue light. Reappearing behind Eva, she let loose a powerful kick, slamming Evangeline into Fate. "Where is the key?" The woman's voice was soft, but powerful. "Tell me where the key is."

"Key? What key? Who are you anyway?" Evangeline demanded.

"I am Iczer-1, soldier of the Cthulhu. The key is the key to the mistresses's return." At the mention of her "mistress" something passed across the woman's face, a…grimace? A shock of pain? It lasted barely a moment, but was nonetheless easily identifiable. "Your companion has already been taken away, right now she's facing the same question." Evangeline and Fate looked back, realizing that Mami had vanished.

"Fate," Evangeline's voice rang inside Fate's head, "I think she's being controlled somehow. Whoever this 'Mistress' of hers is, I don't think she's serving her willingly. I need you to hold her off, I sense something that may be important. Try to lure her towards the ocean, there is something going on over there." With those words Evangeline shot straight upwards, faster than Fate had yet seen her move. Iczer-1 moved to follow, but Fate put herself in front of her.

"You are my opponent." Pointing Bardiche at the woman, "Bardiche, limiter release. TRUE SONIC FORM!" Multiple cartridges discharged inside Bardiche's cylinder, filling Fate with their stored magic.

"Barrier Jacket. True Sonic Form." Bardiche intoned, as a glow enveloped Fate, vanishing in an instant, revealing her outfitted in a black leotard, with black thighhighs and gloves up above her elbows. "Form Change. Riot Blades." Bardiche changed form, hilt retracting, a shorter sword style blade emerging from it, then splitting into two identical swords, connected by a glowing rope of light.

Iczer-1's response was simple, she held up her left fist, a second sword of light springing out of it. The two women, each holding two swords of light, clashed with a massive explosion of energy.

* * *

><p>Evangeline climbed higher and higher into the air, thankfully she did not actually require air to survive. She climbed through the stratosphere, and at almost fifty kilometers over the surface, she found what she was looking for. It was a…wrongness, a palpable sense that there was something there that shouldn't be, that shouldn't even exist. "<em>Ensis Exsequens<em>!" The shafts of pure magic erupted from her hands, and she sliced through the invisible wall. A tear in the very fabric of reality seemed to erupt, and in a flash, a massive floating fortress was revealed. The sense of wrongness was amplified a hundred-fold, a wave of pure evil washed over Evangeline. She found herself on the ground before the gate, the wave of malice having forced her out of the air by its pressure. "I haven't felt anything like this since…it can't be. He's dead. He can't be here!"

"Indeed, Dark Evangel, he can't, and he isn't. But you shouldn't rejoice, since I am far, far worse." The voice rang around Evangeline, coming from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. But then, from the gate of the fortress, a female figure appeared, glowing with a bright, golden light. "Die, Undying Mage." She lifted her arm and pointed at Evangeline, a solid beam of liquid gold light leaped from her fingertip and pierced straight through Evangeline's chest. But right as it dissipated, Evangeline burst apart into a swarm of bats, and recombined behind the woman.

"You really thought that that would be enough to defeat me?" Evangeline stabs her magic blades through the woman. "You should never underestimate the Dark Evangel".

"Indeed, I seem to have taken you too lightly." The woman looked down at the beams of light protruding from her chest. "And yet, you take me even more lightly." She grabbed the beams in her hands, and shattered them like glass. Instantaneously, she was behind Evangeline. No movement, no light, just there, between one moment and the next. Grabbing Evangeline by the head, she slammed her into the ground. "Now you will die. You should not be here."

Evangeline, blood streaming down her face, gave a twisted smile. "I know, that is why I'm here." The smile became a massive grin. "_Magia Erebea_".

An explosion of pure darkness enveloped them both.

* * *

><p>Fate's battle against Iczer-1 raged across the skies. She'd never fought an opponent so perfectly matched to her before. If someone had been watching, they would have just seen two streaks of light, one bright yellow, the other a light blue, painting the night sky with patterns. Neither woman could seem to gain the upper hand, they were equally matched in strength and speed. Fate tried to catch her in binds, but she was too fast, while Fate dodged all the woman's strikes with ease.<p>

Suddenly, she stopped. Fate paused in surprise, what was she doing? Whatever it was, this was her chance. But before she could move, Iczer-1 started go glow with a bright blue light. "Come! Iczer Robo!" And with a flash of blue light, instead of the woman Iczer-1, Fate found herself facing a massive grey and green robot. "Iczer Beam!" the chest of the robot erupted with blue-white light, enveloping Fate…

* * *

><p>The girls all looked up at the robot which had appeared in their midst. "Astraea!" Cecilia called out, "stay here and help keep those two busy, we'll deal with this robot." Cecilia turned her attention to the rest. "Elise, Perrine, Shine, we'll work together on this, just like before. Ok?" a chorus of affirmatives responded immediately. "Lets go!" All four girls opened fire with their weapons, pouring everything they had into the robot. On the ground, Mami summoned hundreds of rifles, hoving in the air behind her. The fired in unison, blasting the robot backwards, as the assault of the girls slacked for a moment, the robot leaped into the air, striking at Shine's Fairlion.<p>

"W-I3NK System, Single mode!" Shine effortlessly evaded the strike, and responded with a slash of her arm mounted blades, scoring deep into the robot's arm. Cecilia saw an opening, and used the Tears to fire four blasts right into the wound Shine created, blowing one of the arms right off.

"Great shot Cecilia!" Elise crowed as she dashed in and attacked with her lance, Perrine right behind her. Elise sliced into the back of the robot, and Perrine followed up with a Tonnerre discharge. The robot faltered again, but still wasn't going down.

Fate saw two figures advancing towards her. A woman in red, and a young girl in black, she was still trying to recover from taking the blast from the Iczer Robo. "Bardiche, Recovery". A glow emanated from Bardiche, enveloping them both, healing their wounds and restoring them. It was something she could only do once, but it was for times like this. But it was just barely too late, they both attacked simultaneously, while the Recovery was still in effect. But right at the last moment, a shape descended and blocked the blows. It was…an angel, huge white wings filled Fate's vision.

"Hey, are you ok?" The angel looked over her shoulder, "I'm Astraea, I'll hold these two off while you recover." Astraea concentrated and her sword and shield grew in size, and seemed to glow with power.

The Recovery ended, and Fate stood up. "No, we'll fight them together." The momentary pause came to an end, and the two attacked again. Blades clashed, glowing yellow beams parrying bodyparts transformed into weapons, brilliant white sword blade deflecting massive steel cleaver. "Astraea, I think they're being controlled. At least, if they are like the woman in the robot, we need to stop them without hurting them too much." A short range Plasma Lancer threw the girl in black several yards away as she said this. And a strike from Astraea sliced through the woman in red's dress, tearing off much of the top.

"That's easier said than done," the assaults didn't phase either antagonist. The girl in black got back up and charged right back at Fate, while the woman in red completely ignored her exposure, as she fought back against Astraea. "Nothing seems to slow them down."

A massive explosion illuminated the beach, and suddenly the girl and woman fell to their knees, hands clutched to their heads, screaming. Fate and Astraea turned around to see that the robot was gone, and that the third woman, Iczer-1, was similarly on the ground, clutching her head and screaming. Finally, all three simultaneously passed out. Fate looked at Astraea and shrugged, the knelt and picked up the girl in black, carrying her back towards where the others were. Astraea did the same with the woman in red. As they reached where the others were, she saw that Mami was kneeling over Iczer-1, with her hands held to the woman's head. "Mami, what happened here?" Mami looked up after a few moments, taking her hands away from the woman's head.

"Oh, Fate-san, we hit…something on that robot, and it exploded, leaving this woman behind, screaming. I think whatever was controlling them was on the robot. Put those two down next to her. My healing magic seems to work on them, so hopefully they'll wake up and we can find out what is going on." Fate and Astraea laid the two girls down next to Iczer-1, and Mami moved over to the girl in black, and put her hands on either side of her head, a soft glow emanated from them. Fate left Mami to her work, and looked around at the others.

A girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes, a few years younger than Fate walked up to her and introduced herself. The others came up and did the same. As Mami worked, they all exchanged information about how they arrived in this place, and what was going on. "It seems that Evangeline was right, they were being controlled. I don't know how she knew, or what she went off to do though. Hopefully she'll return soon." They were interrupted by a moaning sound from one of the three girls, it was the woman in red. Mami knelt down next to her.

"Slowly…slowly…" Mami said softly as the woman's eyes flickered open, but seemed to have trouble focusing, she tried to sit up, but Mami placed her hand on her arm.

"Don't touch me!" the woman sounded terrified, and pulled her arm away from Mami's hands. Looking down, she saw how exposed she was, and actually squeaked, as she blushed and covered herself with her arms. "Who…who are you? What am I doing here? She pulled a set of square framed glasses from a pocket in her skirt, and slipped them on.

"My name's Mami, Tomoe Mami, and like you, we" Mami indicated the rest of them back behind her, "were brought here. Though you and these two," motioning towards Yami and Iczer-1, "were being controlled, and you attacked us. We seem to have managed to break you free though. What is your name?"

"Sattelizer. Satellizer el Bridget." The woman's voice was so soft as to be nearly inaudible. "I'm a Pandora, are you?" Right then, the other two started to stir. Mami started to pat Sattelizer on the shoulder, but she started to flinch away before she even got close, so she settled for a comforting smile, as she moved over to the others.

Fate and Cecilia came over to take Mami's place, and talked a bit with Sattelizer, meanwhile, Konjiki no Yami had woken up, and seemed just as confused, if less scared, than Sattelizer had. Mami knelt next to her, "are you feeling better, Yami-chan?" Yami looked surprised to be called that.

"Yes. H..How do you know my name? Are you an enemy?" Mami shook her head, and gave a soft smile. Yami realized that if they were enemies, they could have disposed of her already, so she was probably safe. The question now was, who were all these blonde girls? What happened? Last she remembered she was with Yuuki Mikan and...and...what? "Where are we?" The girl next to her...Mami, how did she know that name? In her head was just fragments of the last few hours, started to explain what she knew.

"Burgers? No, sorry. All we have are ration bars." Cecilia smiled sheepishly and handed a few to Sattelizer, who was still holding one arm over her exposed breasts, blushing furiously. Cecilia and Fate had explained to the woman what they knew, and she'd explained a bit about herself, and where she came from. Cecilia desperately hoped she never encountered one of the "Nova" Sattelizer-san spoke of.

As they talked, a few feet away, Iczer-1 suddenly sat bolt upright. "Nagisa!" The sudden exclamation drew the attention of the other nine girls on the beach. Iczer-1 got to her feet, her eyes darting around at the unfamiliar faces. A girl, no, a woman in a black leotard, her long blonde hair done up in two long tails walked up to her. Recognition flickered through Iczer-1's mind, but like everything about the last few hours it was fractured and uncertain.

"I see you are up, Soldier Iczer-1." The woman's voice was sweet, but had an element Iczer-1 recognized, a sense of having been tempered on the battlefield.

"You seem to have me at a disadvantage..." she trailed off and arched an eyebrow at the twintailed woman. Eight pairs of eyes watched with interest and anticipation.

"Fate. Enforcer Fate Testarossa Harlaown of the Time Space Administration Bureau." A flicker of recognition went across Iczer-1's eyes, confirming a suspicion Fate had. Fate extended her hand as she finished her introduction. After a brief pause Iczer-1 grasped the proffered hand, gripping it firmly.

"These others, are they also members of the TSAB?" Releasing Fate's hand, she gestured at the other girls scattered across the beach. It was a truly motley group, several seemed to be using technology she had a bit of understanding of, but the comparative advancement was all over the place. Her eyes fell on the two who'd been lying next to her, and the automatic scanning and analysis devices gave their reports. She actually gasped out loud, these two...the small one in black was a nanomachine colony! And the one in red...there was something twisted about the devices implanted in her, almost like what had been done to pervert the Cthulhu, and her wayward sister, Iczer-2. The rest of the group were human, though even some of them were very unusual.

As Fate confirmed that no, the others weren't part of the TSAB, and the introductions began, Iczer-1 started to analyze the others. The youngest of the group, Shine, Elise, Perrine...they were all basically normal humans. Mami, the girl with spiral hair...she was unusual. At first her scans returned normal, but a strong signal seemed to be emanating from the flower-like decoration in her hair. And even stranger, when examined more closely, there seemed to be some sort of...filth, or...corruption hanging over her. Iczer-1 was not given to metaphor, but that's all she could think of to describe what she saw. The older girl, Cecilia, was a perfectly normal human, but the blue earring she had in one ear nearly blinded Iczer-1's censors. It was an incredible concentration of technology, using some sort of spatial compression to store it all away. Fate was a normal Midchildan Human, with an exceptionally strong Magilink signal, though what a Midchildan was doing with these Earth Humans was the question. The Cthulhu were aware of Midchilda and the TSAB, but they had had minimal interactions and Iczer-1 had never personally met a Midchildan Mage before Fate. Last but certainly not least was the "Angel". She was a curiosity, mostly because of her similarity to Iczer-1 herself. The technology was subtly different, but the concept and execution was very similar. She was created to be a soldier, just like Iczer-1 and her sisters were. That collar around her neck, and the short broken chain that descended from it...they were control devices! But they were inactive, the chain broken in both form and function. Curious.

By this point, the mutual introductions had finished, and everyone had more-or-less been brought up to speed on the others. They still had no answers, but it was clear there was someone out there, someone looking for the "keys". Iczer-1 and Yami both had no memory of the "Mistress", or what the keys they had been searching for were. They spent the next few hours sitting around a fire on the beach (there had been none of the usual fretting over how to start a fire, to the secret disappointment of several of the girls, it just seemed like cheating to use magic!), discussing tactics and how their abilities could be used in concert with each other. Mami had also undone the bandage around her leg, revealing smooth, unscarred skin below. With a bit of concentration, a new thighhigh formed on her leg, returning her to her usual elegant appearance. She looked up as Cecilia cleared her throat.

"It seems we can't do anything else until this Evangeline-san returns," Cecilia summed up, "but we have no idea when that will be." As she spoke, the sun broke the horizon to the east, and light washed across the beach. But moments later, a shadow fell, despite the cloudless sky. Everyone looked up to see a massive fortress floating in the air…


	11. The Lady of Chaos

**Chapter 11: The Lady of Chaos**

_"Magia Erebea"_, finishing the nearly silent incantation, Evangeline exploded with darkness, throwing the golden woman backwards. A streak of black lightning shot into the air, and resolved back into the shape of the tiny vampire. But now her golden was pure silver, her skin darkened, glowing magical designs up her arms and legs. "I congratulate you, for you are the very first person to ever witness this form." The golden woman had floated up before her, a sneer on her face at the boastful pronouncement. "But you won't live long enough to see any more!" Evangeline's voice resounded behind the woman, an instant before a bloody arm shot out of her chest. "Far too simple, I'd hoped you would have been more of a challenge."

"Fool!" The golden woman spat the word out, as if its very taste offended her. "Do you not know who I am?" In an instant she was no longer impaled on Evangeline's arm, now a few paces in front of the bloody armed vampire. The gaping hole the woman's chest knitted back together, her armor sealing itself back into place. "I am the Soldier of Destruction Sailor Galaxia! I am the very embodiment of Chaos. All the multiverse belongs to me!" She raised her hands over her head, with a gesture as if too encompass all the world around her. And as she finished her boast, she laughed a booming, maniacal laugh.

"Such bad taste you have. You are even worse than That Person. I shall do the universe a favor and put you down for good." Evangeline regarded the laughing demi-goddess with the scorn one heaps on a particularly loathsome insect. "Though I must say", licking Galaxia's blood off her hand, "while your taste may be terrible, your _taste_ is delectable." Barring her fangs, Evangeline gathered darkness around her, "Now for the main dish!"

Galaxia's golden aura met Evangeline's cloak of darkness, and the world exploded.

* * *

><p>The sudden appearance of the floating island startled all the girls for a few moments, the sudden silence broken by an alarm from Bardiche. "Warning. Dimensional distortion detected." Almost before the passionless voice faded, purple bubbles appeared, bursting almost instantly. In their wake was over a dozen…creatures, completely unlike the dragon monsters from before. These looked like nothing so much as armored plants, green vines in the rough shape of a human, with purple armor covering the 'head' and 'chest'. Within the 'helmet' armor was a single huge, glowing red orb. The creatures were well over two meters tall and over a dozen of them completely surrounded the ten girls.<p>

"Einst!" Shine's scream broke the rest out of the momentary shock. "I recognize these! They fire beams from their heads!" The creatures 'eyes' had started glowing bright and brighter red, as if they were charging up.

Fate and Iczer-1's eyes met for a moment and they nodded, Iczer-1 shot vertically into the sky, followed a moment later by Astraea who'd realized what was going on. "Everyone else, close to me!" Fate barked the command to the younger girls, who all scrambled closer to the mage. "Defensor Advanced!" Fate held Bardiche vertically as she said the brief incantation.

"Defensor Advanced" Bardiche echoed emotionlessly, three golden domes appeared around the remaining girls, but before the final outer dome fully formed, the creatures unleashed their attack. Over a dozen ruby-red beams struck the domes, the outer half-formed dome shattered immediately, while the second seemed to hold for a moment. It gave way after a second of concentrated bombardment, but the beams had started to weaken. The final dome took the remaining assault, and held…almost. Two of the beams still had some power and blasted through the barrier. An explosion of dust marked where they impacted.

"No!" Fate's yell cut through the sudden silence, but even as she started to move, the dust began to clear, and a blue light shone through. Perrine was on her knees, triangular black ears poking out of her blonde hair, a lithe black tail swishing behind her. A blue shield made up of interlocking magic circles that Fate didn't recognize floated before her. Her breathing was hard and heavy, but she seemed ok, as did everyone else. She saw Mami dropping down next to the cat-eared girl and decided to let the gunner take care of it, the creatures were still out there after all.

"Th…that's hard to do…without a…Striker Unit…" Perrine panted as the drill-haired gunner knelt next to her. "I barely got it up in time, and if they'd been any stronger they'd have gone right through." She smiled at Mami, but now I'll have a good story for the Major when I get back. A red shape suddenly moved in front of them.

"Iczer and Astraea have cleared the way to your equipment, hurry up and get it on, there may be more of them coming soon." Satellizer's voice was clipped and harsh, at some point she'd taken her glasses back off and her dress had fixed itself completely. Perrine and Mami looked towards the Fairlion, and realized that when they'd escaped before the barrier went up, Iczer-1 and Astraea had concentrated on the Einst nearest where they'd left their equipment. As they scrambled to their feet, one of the remaining creatures reached Satellizer. "Both of you, go. I can handle this one. Mami, you help protect them as they get suited up. Not all of us can summon our weapons after all." Mami nodded, spinning around and running down the beach with Perrine. They were quickly joined by Elise and Shine; along with Yami, who seemed to have also been detailed to guard duty.

"Well, it's not all bad," Shine faintly smiled as she ran towards her robot. "The Einst from my world are much bigger." The other girls (except Yami) blanched a bit as they realized how big the Einst must have been to be comparable to Shine's Fairlion. But even as they approached where the Fairlion, Perrine's Striker Units and Bachastelze had been left, more purple bubbles materialized. Three new Einst, looking for all the world like animate dinosaur skeletons, confronted the five girls.

The girls skidded to a halt, "Shine, on my signal, make a break for it with the others" Mami turned to Yami, "Yami-chan, we're going for the middle one, ignore the others for now." Yami nodded her assent, but before she even finished, Mami had already dropped a field of rifles. "Yami-chan, go!" Mami opened fire as a black and gold blur shot forward. A multitude of blades scored deep into the creature, yellow bolts of magical energy striking into the gashes. Explosions rocked the creature, one of its arms blown off, but it wasn't enough. "Yami-chan, MOVE!" Mami screamed at the top of her lungs, even as she used her ribbons to gather all her rifles together. The ribbon twisted around the bundle of riffles, moments later a three barreled cannon emerged.

Yami hearing Mami's yell, wrapped a length of her hair around the head of the center monster, and then hurled herself into the air. Even as she did, she heard Mami's voice once again. "SCOPPIO FINALE!" A massive blast of yellow energy struck the creature, which exploded violently. The shock buffeted Yami as she descended back toward the ground, she could see Perrine had put up that blue magical shield once again to protect herself and the others from the backlash on the ground. "Shine, go!" As the explosion faded away, the four girls on the ground rushed through the smoke, quickly emerging on the other side. Mami skidded to a stop on the loose sand, a rifle in each hand. A thump next to her indicated Yami finally landing from her leap. A quick glance showed the small girl in a three point pose, one her arms morphed into a blade already. Out of the smoke the remaining two monsters emerged, damaged by the destruction of their companion, but advancing forward relentlessly.

Shine leapt for the ascension cable, her foot hitting the stirrup started its ascent upwards. The usually somewhat thrilling ride up now felt painfully slow, she felt every microsecond of the trip, finally she reached the top and threw herself into the cockpit. Flipping open a recessed panel on her right armrest, she looked at the small red button within, remembering what Latooni had told her.

"_Never use the emergency start. Even if it's an emergency, there will be time for at least the abbreviated checklist."_

"_So why is it here?"_

"Because there are things worse than emergencies" Shine repeated the words Latooni told her that day, as her thumb pressed down on the button. The cockpit exploded with light and noise, as every console activated simultaneously. A 15 minute checklist covered in 30 seconds. As the cockpit door shut, Shine activated the tactical view, and was horrified at what she saw. While her group was only dealing with the two remaining skeleton creatures (she noted that Perrine was already assisting, and Elise seemed to be getting started up as fast as Shine did), the other five were locked in a pitched battle against dozens of the creatures. Not just the skeletons and the cannon-plants, but also ones that looked like suits of armor. Dozens of the creatures surrounded the five girls. Fate, Iczer-1, Astraea and Sattelizer were on the ground in the center, while Cecilia was in the air, but having to dodge fire directed upwards from the cannon-plants. Flipping the comm switch, she connected to the others "Cecilia-san, Fate-san, get everyone into the air, now!" even as she spoke she tapped at the weapon selection screen.

Cecilia heard the clipped, slightly accented voice over her communicator, looking down towards the raging battle, she saw Fate nodding towards Iczer-1 and the others. Fate and Iczer-1 leapt into the sky, while Astraea grabbed Satellizer by the armpits and joined the already airborne trio. The five girls climbed higher into the sky, even as the voice returned to the radio "VOSTOCK LASER!" Cecilia turned just in time to see a massive golden beam burst from the Fairlion's chest, scouring into the sandy beach in an instant. The creatures were vaporized, and all that was left behind was a glassed over trench several hundred meters long. As the blast faded away, Mami's group finished off the last two creatures beneath the Fairlion. Perrine and Elise took to the air, while Mami and Yami jumped up to the Fairlion's shoulder. Astraea dropped Satellizer onto the opposite shoulder, and Shine activated her Tesla Drive, rising to meet the others.

The girls zoomed upwards, heading towards the floating fortress island, but their brief respite was interrupted by the return of the flying dragon monsters from before. They fought through the wave, not pausing in their ascent at all. "Everyone! Get to the island, we'll fight them off there." Fate's command was acknowledged by the rest, and they redoubled their efforts to cut through the creatures. Astraea and Iczer-1 led the rest, but as they approached the island they smashed into a barrier. The two were thrown backwards by a repelling force. A brief sheen showed the island surrounded by a sphere of force.

"Iczer Beam!" Iczer-1 shot a blue beam of energy out of her clasped hands, but it harmlessly skipped over the barrier's surface. Shots from Mami's rifles, Elise and Cecilia's beam cannons, all had the same effect. "Dammit. How are we going to break through this?" Iczer-1 continued firing at the barrier, but it seemed unaffected by the barrage. She almost offhanded sliced a monster in half with her sword after giving up on shooting the barrier.

"I think," Fate spun Bardiche's Riot Zanber form around her, destroying half a dozen of the creatures in a single slice, "that I can break the barrier. But it will take me a few minutes to do so. Can you guys keep these things off of me while I do that?" Iczer, Astraea and Cecilia all nodded their assent. "Shine, you, Perrine and Elise take care of that side, watch for the barrier to go down so you can drop off the others." Shine's acknowledgement was brief, but assured. "Bardiche! Sealing form!"

Bardiche's blade vanished, its shaft extending from the short sword form to full staff mode. A golden magic circle formed beneath Fate's feet while a trio of wings of the same color sprouted from Bardiche. Fate concentrated, feeling the spent magic around her, there was more than she expected, hopefully it would be enough. "Cartridge Load!" Bardiche discharged all six magic cartridges in its revolver magazine, filling Fate with their power. Fate extended Bardiche outwards, a second magic circle forming at the tip of its extended blade. _"I summon the light of destruction down on my prisoners."_ The chant was quiet, no one else could hear the words. All the magic power Fate had, plus all the energy from the cartridges, flowed towards the new circle, where a golden orb of magical energy formed. _"Stars, gather, and become the light that pierces everything."_ Magic began to visibly coalesce out of the air, flowing into the orb, its golden color changing, becoming stripped with pink. Each bit of magic from the aether accelerating the color change. _"Tear through everything in a blaze of light."_ The orb was now a brilliant pink, and had grown to nearly as wide as Fate was tall. Something felt wrong though, as if she wasn't doing it right, something important..."of course." With a slight smile, Fate adjusted her grip on Bardiche, moving her right hand down, taking a left-handed stance. She closed her eyes for a moment, "thank you, Nanoha." Her eyes flew open, locked onto the fortress before her. All was set.

_"STARLIGHT BREAKER!"_

The massive discharge, far too large to call a simple "beam", impacted the shield, which for a moment seemed to hold, but only a moment. The barrier visibly shattered, as if it became glass in its final second. The Starlight Breaker was not finished, continuing straight through and impacting the fortress itself. One entire corner tower was vaporized, as was a good portion of the wall on the front and side. By the time the dust settled, a quarter of the outer portion of the fortress was simply gone, and even the inner keep was badly scorched and scarred. "Dammit Testarossa." The voice and choice of address caused Fate to spin around in shock, but it was just Iczer-1, of course it was. The attack had just exhausted her and she wasn't thinking straight. "I've never seen Midchildan magic used that way." Fate realized that at some point the sky had been cleared of the monsters. She could see the Fairlion dropping down towards the surface of the island, Mami and the others hopping off and going to go check the entrance.

Still trying to catch her breath, Fate took the moment to replace Bardiche's cartridges from her speedloader. "It's a custom spell. Designed to use spent and ambient magic to amplify its power. I'm not really suited to casting it though." She gave a wan smile at that. "The barrier busting properties were a surprise side-effect."

"So you didn't make it?" Iczer had gently led Fate down to surface of the island, Fate's feet touched down and she wobbled a bit, but she stayed up. "How do you know a spell like that then?"

"My wife made it." Iczer didn't bat an eye at that. "Though you should try getting hit with it sometime!"

"I thought you said your wife made it?" Iczer's voice actually had a bit of confusion and curiosity in it now.

"We...had a rough first date." Iczer's looked like she wanted to respond to that, but right then Mami ran up to the two.

"There don't seem to be any monsters, of either type, left on the island. We found the door to the inner keep, Yami and Satellizer are keeping an eye on it. She looked up at the two older women, somewhat expectantly. Fate idly noticed that the golden gem on Mami's hairpiece had turned dark, as if it were stained with oil. Shaking the thought away, she turned to Iczer.

"Well, we're going to have to go inside." Iczer nodded her agreement. "I think we should divide into two groups. Not everyone is suited for indoor combat anyway."

The rest of the group, except for Yami and Sattelizer, had gathered for the impromptu strategy session. "I agree with Fate-san." Cecilia chimed in, floating just a bit over the ground. "We'll keep an eye on things out here while you go in and find Evangeline-san."

Fate looked around and saw general agreement. "Alright then. Cecilia, Shine, Perrine, Elise and Astraea will stay out here and keep watch. Iczer, Mami, Satellizer, Yami and I will enter the fortress and try to find Evangeline." The decision reached, Fate, Iczer and Mami all took off towards the fortress, leaving the other five hovering near the edge of the island.

"I hope everything goes well. I wish we could help them in there." Elise sounded worried.

Perrine lightly gripped the smaller girl's shoulder. "They'll be fine. They're the strongest of us, really. Besides they're right. We aren't equipped for fighting in there. Though I guess Astraea would do fine." She looked over to the pretty-faced angeloid, who was absently rubbing her stomach.

"Astraea's fine with staying outside. I prefer the sky anyway." She looked around. "It would be useful to have Ikaros though, or even Nymph. I'm not too good at anything but fighting." Right then, alarms began to wail on the Fairlion, Bachastelze and Blue Tears. At the same time, a sound like cracking glass rang through the air. The quintet watched in shock as the area before the castle, the very fabric of reality itself, shattered. Out of the newly born hole in the world, stepped an enormous creature. It looked much like the dragon's they'd been fighting; only this was a true dragon. It towered over them, at least seventy meters in height. Its roar shook the very stones of the castle.

"Mein Gott." Elise cursed under her breath. "How do we fight something like that?" Perrine, Cecilia and Astraea formed up with her, the Fairlion floating behind them.

"We just do." Astraea looked at the others. "We fight, and we win. No?"

* * *

><p>Satellizer and Yami led the group into the castle, alert for enemy attack. The quintet slowly made their way down the stone corridor, their path clear; there were no doors, no intersections, just a winding hallway. "This isn't right…" Mami, in the middle with a rifle at the ready, stated aloud what they all had figured out. "We're being led somewhere."<p>

"Indeed." Iczer, bringing up the rear with Fate, "but we have no other choice. Even if it is a trap, we must press onwards. There is something we must do. Whatever it is, it's ahead." As she spoke, the corridor began to widen, opening up to a large archway. Beyond lay an enormous throne room. The room was nearly empty, except for the throne, and what hung behind the throne. Someone gasped as they realized what they were seeing. Hanging from the ceiling, chains connected to each wrist, was Evangeline. Naked and bloody, she was displayed above the throne as if a trophy.

"Evangeline-san!" Mami's exclamation broke the shocked silence. "What did you do to her!" Those words caused the rest to finally take notice of the figure sitting on the throne. Propping her chin up on one fist, legs crossed in a casual manner, faintly smiling as if she was waiting for some friends to arrive.

"Welcome! I see you all appreciate my new trophy. I admit she gave me more trouble than I expected. Much more trouble than I expect from any of you, or your friends outside." She looked over the five girls arrayed before her. Her amber eyes seemed to take in everything about them at a glance. "You all are truly unfortunate. None of you were supposed to be here. But _she_ had to interfere. Instead of the keys, I received eleven meddling children. Well, perhaps your vampire friend was not a child, but the rest of you? Children." Her tone shifted from its earlier casual friendliness, turning harsh and cold by the end. She nearly spat the final word. "So unlike her, to involve innocent bystanders, she must have known that you had no chance against me." Her tone lightened again, but was filled with unmistakable malice.

Something about the woman inspired fear, a wave of terror flooded over Fate and the others, as if they looked death itself in the face. Iczer stepped forward, brushing away the feeling, "Who are you? What do you want?" Her tone was confrontational and confident.

"I guess I should introduce myself. For all the good it will do you." The woman moved for the first time, standing from the throne. "I am Sailor Galaxia! The embodiment of Chaos! The Ending and the Beginning, all that is, all that was, and all that shall be!"

"Impossible." Yami's soft voice broke the silence that Galaxia's preposterous pronouncement produced. "Chaos is a concept. It is not something someone can be." Yami's right arm transformed into a blade, "but whatever or whoever you are, you hurt a friend. You are keeping us here." The small assassin launched herself towards Galaxia.

"Fool." A whip appeared in Galaxia's hand, in an instant it lashed out, striking Yami. Yami flew across the room and crashed into the wall. The others had moved moments after Yami. Fate, Iczer and Satellizer moving in close, Mami opening fire with her rifles, the three swordswoman struck as one. The whip cracked again. Once. Twice. Thrice. With each strike an assailant was flung away. Fate to the wall opposite Yami, Satellizer nearly landing on top of shapeshifter, while Iczer smashed through the throne itself, sliding to a halt beneath Evangeline's apparently lifeless body. "Less than children. Babies." Shaking her head, "I grow tired of this." She raised her right arm, the crystal on her bracelet glowing brightly.

A beam shot from the bracelet, striking Mami in the chest…

* * *

><p><strong>Apologies for the extended delay, but stuff comes up. This chapter was also essentially written from scratch, all the previous ones were re-writes of an existing story I had. <strong>

**If you are familiar with Sailor Moon Sailor Stars, you may have an idea of what Galaxia is doing to Mami there at the end~**

**One more chapter and an epilogue to go! Hopefully it won't take a month this time.  
><strong>


	12. Witch of Despair

**I'm so sorry at how long this took. The chapter really got away from me, and ended up expanding well beyond what I originally had in mind. **

**Just an epilogue after this, and it really will be up fairly quickly. I promise.  
><strong>

**Chapter 12: Witch of Despair**

Shine barely avoided the crystalline projectiles. With the W-I3NK system active it was almost as if she could feel them whipping past her body. The Fairlion spun in a pirouette, Rolling Cannon blasts intercepting the largest of the missiles. The sky cleared for a moment, Cecilia and Elise popped from behind the Fairlion, and triggered their cannons. Bright blasts of energy impacted the monster, or more accurately, the monster's barrier. For a moment, a black spherical sheen appeared, stopping the attacks well before they hit the creature itself. Shine bit off a curse, "This isn't working. We can't get through that barrier." Even as she spoke, the monster's maw opened once again, spitting out a hail of crystalline missiles. "Cecilia, Elise; evasion plan delta-1" The W-I3NK system automatically transferred the new evasion pattern to Blue Tears and Bachastelze; their dance resuming once again.

While Shine coordinated the three machines, Astraea and Perrine were working together. Unable to tie into the W-I3NK system, they had to be even more careful around the monster's attacks. The crystalline breath was bad enough, but the tail and claws were just as deadly. Perrine's Bren had long since run out of ammunition, while Astraea lacked any long range abilities worth mentioning. They had no choice but to try and break though the barrier at close range. "Astraea, I'm going to try and weaken the barrier, see if you can break through immediately afterwards." The pretty faced Angeloid nodded, her shield vanished in a flash of light and changed to a two handed grip on her longsword. As the creature opened its mouth to attack the other three again, Perrine struck. "Tonerre!"

The electrical discharge arced from the tip of Perrine's Saber, joining her and the barrier with a writhing azure light. The barrier became visible at the point of impact. It was perversely both pitch black and coruscated with light. "Astraea, now!" A blue and gold flash shot by, Astraea had moved away, to get a good speed build up. Perrine's discharge ended moments before Astraea's sword impacted the exact same spot. The distortion on the barrier had spread, now the entire back half of the creature was obscured by the black rainbow. A sound like a thunderstorm was coming from the impact point.

Astraea heard someone screaming. It took her a moment to realize it was her own voice. She was screaming with all her might, even as she poured ever bit of power she had into her blade. "PIERCE THROUGH! CHRYASOR!" As she called out her blade's name, she felt something inside her change. She suddenly understood the nature of the barrier. She didn't know how, didn't know why. But she didn't care. She knew what to do now. A subtle shift in how she directed her power, a slight change in her stance. It shouldn't be enough, but it was. Chryasor sliced through the barrier as if it were made of cloth. Astraea, no longer blocked by the barrier, shot forward at an incredible speed, burying Chryasor into the monsters spine. The blade was tiny compared to the monster, it should have been a mere pinprick. The creature howled as if receiving a fatal wound. It whirled around in search of its assailant.

"The barrier went down! Astraea did it!" Elise's gleeful shout echoed over the comm channel. "This is our chance!" She unleashed all of Bach's weapons. Blasts of energy scoring deep into the creature's hide. Shine and Cecilia joined in moments later, their weapons inflicting even more grievous damage on the monster. Astraea's sword sliced through the creature like a knife through butter. It flailed about wildly, trying desperately to ward off the golden haired angel. It was all in vain. She was too fast, inflicting too much damage. Finally, she reached its head. Flying upwards, she held Chryasor to the sky. The blade shone brighter than the sun. But even as she began her descent, aiming to impale the monster's head, the fortress behind her exploded. Darkness enveloped them all.

* * *

><p>Iczer found herself laid out on her back, amid the rubble of the golden throne. Galaxia's power was beyond imagining. She'd flicked her away without even a thought. Another reminder of that power was hanging lifelessly above her head. Scanning the body, she realized that "lifeless" was more than an expression, there were no signs of life at all. Iczer had witnessed much death in her life, she was not shocked by yet another corpse. However she felt a tinge of regret, she'd been interested in meeting the supposed vampire Testarossa and Tomoe had spoken of. She had a vague, hazy memory of the fight with Testarossa, and that Evangeline had been there for the first part, but not enough to have any impressions of what she was like. As she got to her feet, she saw that Bridget and Darkness were approaching the shattered throne.<p>

"Is she…" Satellizer trailed off, realizing the answer even as she spoke. Her dress front had ripped once again, exposing generous amounts of her bosom, but she paid it no mind. "We should get her down." The statement was undirected, but Yami responded by slicing through the chains with two hair blades. The limp body fell into Iczer's arms.

Iczer's scans were confirmed by the cold flesh she held. Life left this body hours in the past. They never had a chance of rescuing her. Cradling the body, she exchanged looks with Bridget and Darkness. They failed the childlike vampire, but they would not let her go unavenged. Suddenly, the body twitched. Spasms wracked the thin limbs, dull lifeless eyes came back into focus. A soft sound came from barely moving lips. One word, over and over, soft, almost inaudible at first, but growing learer and clearer with each repetition.

"Blood."

The three looked at each other, not comprehending for a moment. Satellizer realized what was going on first. Neither Iczer nor Yami were from Earth. They didn't grow up with the legends. "She really is a vampire! No wonder you didn't register any life signs! She is dead, she's been dead for hundreds of years!" Yami and Iczer looked at her blankly, clearly unfamiliar with the lore behind vampires. Of course, Satellizer found it hard to believe that she was in the presence of one herself! "Give her here." Satellizer plucked the shivering girl out of Iczer's arms, and held her in a way that placed Evangeline's mouth near one of her own exposed breasts. The reaction was instantaneous. Evangeline's fangs barred for a moment, and then plunged into Satellizer's breast. Satellizer didn't even flinch, just held the tiny vampire like a nursing baby, letting her drink her fill.

* * *

><p>Consciousness returned to Evangeline. Awakening from the vampire sleep, especially when forced into it due to brutal injuries, was always a confusing process. When was the last time she'd been defeated so soundly? It must have been centuries ago, long before she reached her full power. Before she knew how to properly measure her opponents, and not get into fights that she would lose. The thoughts ran through her head in a jumble, her mind reactivating in fits and starts. She realized she was feeding, that was why she was waking up. Blood trickled down her throat, not the constant gush of an artery, so she probably wouldn't end up killing whoever was saving her life. She moved her tongue, felt her fangs buried in flesh. She also felt something familiar…a protrusion of some sort. She licked it with her tongue, eliciting a squeak of surprise. Evangeline's still sluggish mind struggled to piece together the inputs, when her eyes finally started to work again, and she realized what she was doing. She quickly took her mouth off the breast she'd been suckling, as her head came up, she made eye-contact with the breast's owner. The golden haired woman's face was a furious red, nearly as red as the tattered remains of her dress. "Ah…" Evangeline tried to string her jumbled thoughts into words; she still needed much more blood before she could even begin to be truly functional again. "Thank you. I…uhh…" Evangeline knew she sounded like an idiot; she hadn't been this embarrassed since that time on the bridge. Blue and green eyes were still locked together; the blushing woman also seemed to be struggling to find words.<p>

"Are you ok now?" The sweet voice surprised Evangeline. For some reason it brought to mind a certain painfully shy mind-reader. Evangeline nodded her head affirmatively, both because she was still having trouble assembling coherent sentences and to shake away the annoying tangential thoughts. "We thought you were dead."

Evangeline wasn't surprised by that at all, even Galaxia may have been fooled. "It was a special sleep, a 'Vampire Sleep', it looks very much like death, especially to those unfamiliar with it." Evangeline stopped a bit short, surprised she'd gotten the whole sentence out so easily. "Anyway, I will still need much more blood before I can fight again, but for now I seem to be functional once more. Do you think you could…?"

"Oh! I'm so sorry. I just…it kinda felt…" Satellizer cut off the rambling thought and gently lowered the smaller girl to the ground. Evangeline's legs buckled a bit, a small but firm hand grasped her arm, holding her up. She looked up; about to snap that she didn't need help, but found herself looking into a pair of intense red eyes. The girl holding her arm was only a bit taller than Evangeline herself, her eyes the color of fresh blood. She didn't say a word, just gave a slight nod and kept her grip firm. With a sigh, Evangeline gave in. Saving face at this point was impossible, and trying to do so would just exhaust what little mental energy she'd recovered. The third woman stepped forward, but before she could say anything they were interrupted by the most piercing scream of agony and terror Evangeline had ever heard.

* * *

><p>Mami watched helplessly as her companions were effortlessly flicked away by Galaxia. She raised her rifles and fired on the woman, the magical bolts dissipated a foot from her body. She tried again and again, but nothing worked. Galaxia lifted her right arm, the crystal on her bracelet flashed, a beam of light struck Mami in the chest, lifting her off the ground and throwing her against the wall. Pinned to the wall by a force, Mami had no way of resisting what came next. Galaxia raised her left arm, another flash and Mami felt something being drawn out of her.<p>

She felt her transformation cancel, her school uniform replacing the brown and cream magical girl outfit. Looking down, her eyes being the only part of her body she could still move, she saw her Soul Gem emerge from her chest. The golden egg was deeply stained with darkness, she'd never seen it so corrupt. Looking up, she saw Galaxia make a motion with her hand, causing the Soul Gem to float halfway between Mami and the golden woman. The gem pulsed. Alternating brilliant golden yellow and sickening black, Mami watched in horror as she realized that during the pulses of blackness, the Soul Gem was no longer a gilded egg, but a black sphere on a spike. A Grief Seed. She struggled against her bonds, but the magic holding her to the wall was beyond her ability to resist. She was unable to do anything but watch as her Soul Gem repeatedly transformed into a Grief Seed, and then back again.

Galaxia made another motion, and something truly bizarre happened. The Soul Gem and Grief Seed moved apart. They now existed side by side. The Soul Gem glowing a brilliant, pure gold, the Grief Seed emanating a black aura. They moved further apart, and started orbiting a common center. Faster and faster, outlining a circle in the air between Mami and Galaxia. The gems were but a blur now, the space between them was filled with the emptiness the rifts had shown. For the first time in what seemed like ages, Galaxia spoke.

"Come! Witch of Despair! Return to universe!" Those words triggered something. A surge of darkness out of the void between the spinning gems, gems that were still connected to Mami. She screamed as if her very soul was being torn apart. The agony seemed to last for ages, pain unlike any she'd ever felt before. Pain that reached down to the very core of her being, and then suddenly it stopped, and she fell to the ground. Looking upwards from where she slumped against the wall, beyond the…thing emerging from the portal, she saw a golden blade protruding from Galaxia's chest.

Galaxia looked down in surprise as the blade emerged from her back. She'd been so distracted by the ritual she hadn't even realized someone had approached. "I have had quite enough," a brief pause for breath, "of you hurting my friends." Fate slammed the other Riot Blade into Galaxia's lower back, blood poured from the wounds. "That was for Evangeline." She deactivated the blades, letting Galaxia's limp body fall to the ground. Fate stepped over the Galaxia's body, and approached the portal. The room was filling with the darkness; it had to be stopped somehow. She reactivated Bardiche, combining the Riot Blades once again. "Riot Zanber!" she sliced through the portal, the spinning stopped, the Soul Gem and Grief Seed hovering still in the air. A thin line appeared across the middle of the Grief Seed, and it split in half. The two halves fell to the ground, but evaporated before they even reached it. The Soul Gem also fell, but Fate caught it before it hit the ground.

"Do you…" the voice was thin and pained, "…really think this will stop me? Stop her?" Fate ignored Galaxia's words, and kneeled down in front of Mami. Mami's eyes were fluttering, as if she were struggling to stay conscious. "It is too late. For you, for everyone!" Fate placed the Soul Gem into Mami's hand. It flashed for a moment, then turned into a ball of light which reformed around Mami's left index finger as a ring. Fate turned to face Galaxia at last, but her eyes widened at what she saw.

"Yes, it may be too late for us, _Sailor Galaxia_, but it is also far, far too late for you." The bruised, bloody figure stood above Galaxia's crumpled body. Satellizer and Yami right behind her. "I said you had a wonderful taste, and I'm here for the main course!" Evangeline knelt down and sunk her fangs into Galaxia's neck and drank her fill.

Fate turned and helped Mami to her feet. "Thank you, Fate-san." Mami averted her eyes from Evangeline's feeding. Galaxia may be finished, Mami didn't sound very convinced, but we still have that to deal with." She pointed upwards, where the darkness that had emerged from the portal was coalescing. Her point was well timed, for even as she spoke, the darkness became…something else. A wave of blackness exploded outwards, passing by the girls harmlessly, but blowing the walls of the fortress down effortlessly.

For all that the wave left them unharmed, the aftermath of the fortress's destruction was disorienting. Dust and smoke filled the air, but was quickly wiped away with a blast of cold air. Evangeline stood above Galaxia's motionless body, blood dripping down her chin. The wind she'd summoned to clear the air died down, and they found themselves staring at a massive…tree? Whatever it was, it reached hundreds of meters into the sky, and it seemed to be made of constantly shifting patterns of…something Mami could not even wrap her mind around. It was as if she were looking into a Witch's World from the outside. That thought caused everything to click, she understood, at least a bit, of what Galaxia had done. As if the realization in Mami's head was a cue, she saw the runes that always appeared around a witch, and as always, she understood them without being able to read them. She knew the witch's name.

"Kriemhild Gretchen"

* * *

><p>The wave of darkness passed Astraea harmlessly, and she never wavered from her strike. Chryasor struck home, dead center in the creature's forehead. Its scream of agony overwhelmed her senses, she was whipped back and forth by its head, but she held tight. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the movement and roaring stopped. She pulled her sword from the monster's head. The blade was coated with black blood. Even as she flicked the blood off of the blade, the creature collapsed to the ground, dead.<p>

Turning around, she looked to where the wave of darkness originated, and found the fortress gone. And in its place, a massive tree, or something that looked like a tree. A tree made of shifting, eye-wrenching darkness. A few moments later a second wave, a blast of freezing air washed over her, as it passed, the dusty air surrounding the base of the tree had cleared, and she saw the group who had entered the fortress, looking battered, but alive. She made her way towards them and landed. Followed shortly by Perrine, Elise and Cecilia, the Fairlion lightly touched down behind them. She saw that someone new had joined them, the Evangeline they had discussed earlier, she realized. Astraea then noticed that Evangeline was standing over the body of a woman she didn't recognize, and who was very clearly dead.

"Well, it looks like we're all here." Evangeline's tone was surprisingly light, considering that she was still naked and covered with her own and Galaxia's blood. "I thought we'd be done once we dealt with Galaxia, but it seems the real final boss has appeared. And completely out of nowhere, as is proper." She looked around, as if expecting a reaction from the rest. "Meh, you all are far too serious. Mami, you said you knew something about this…thing?"

Mami had been looking at her now cleansed Soul Gem, as if she expected it to suddenly bite her, but Evangeline's voice broke her out of it. "Ah, yes. Well, it's a Witch. I could see the runes when it formed; in fact I see them all over, though the only ones I can understand are its name. Kriemhild Gretchen." Mami closed her eyes for a moment and a yellow flash enveloped her, a moment later it was gone and she once more wore her Magical Girl outfit. "I've never seen a Witch that large before, or one outside of a Witch's World. I don't know why it's not attacking us, or doing anything really. I've never seen a Witch just…sit there before." Mami gave a slightly sheepish shrug at the last, but her eyes remained locked with Evangeline's.

"Does anyone else here…something?" Elise spoke up in the silence following Mami's words. "Like a…humming?" The others returned blank looks.

"Nothing is on my pickups." Shine's voice came over the loudspeaker attached to the Fairlion.

"I'm not…wait, I hear something now." Cecilia's tone shifted mid sentence, and she turned to look at the Witch Tree. "Blue Tears isn't detecting anything though, but I can clearly hear it."

"Are you picking up anything, Iczer?" Fate still couldn't hear the sound, and Bardiche similarly wasn't detecting any cause for it.

"No, nothing here either, but…" a gasp interrupted her statement. She turned to see Satellizer on her knees, her hands clasped to her chest. "Bridget. What's happening?" She rushed over to the red-clad girl.

"No…not…again…I won't…I won't…I'm not…" Satellizer's words made no sense, and before Iczer could do anything, her eyes glazed over and she fell forward, unconscious. A soft thump caused her to spin around, to find Fate crumpled to the ground, also unconscious. "What is happening…" Her eyes met Evangeline's, who gave a wan smile, before she too fell unconscious. In moments, Iczer was the only one of the eleven still standing. The Fairlion was also slumped over, as if imitating the position its pilot must be in.

"You failed. Again." The voice rang in Iczer's head. A voice that should not, could not, be there. "They will die, just like everyone you've ever cared for. You are a failure, Iczer-1."

"No! I did not fail them! I did not fail her! I…I…" Darkness rushed over Iczer-1.

* * *

><p>"Oy. Wake up. Oy!" A foot prodded into Mami's midsection. She slowly opened her eyes to find herself…somewhere…nowhere. Just grey, grey everywhere. "Oy!" Another prod, more of a kick, really, caused her to focus on the voice; a voice she knew, and knew could not be here. Rolling over onto her back, she sat upwards, and nearly bashed into someone's forehead. A someone with dark red eyes and somewhat surprisingly, red hair. Of course it wasn't so surprising considering who the voice belonged to.<p>

"Sakura-san…"

"That's my name." Sakura Kyouko pulled a box of Pocky out of her slightly ragged jacket, extracted a stick and crunched down on it. "Now, you've gotten yourself into quite the fix, haven't you?"

* * *

><p>"You came back. You don't belong here." The small blonde girl's voice had a very disapproving tone to it. "I explained this to you last time we met. This is a world that can never be." Fate looked down into eyes so very similar to her own, and tried to remember why her older sister was saying such things.<p>

Iczer felt the sheets over her naked skin, and even more, the warmth of the girl in her arms. She pulled the small, warm body closer, nuzzling into the crop of short green hair. "Nagisa…"

"This isn't real, you know. It's just a memory." Iczer couldn't understand what her lover's words meant.

* * *

><p>Yami sat on a bench, kicking her feet, her breath puffing in the cold air. "Here you go, Yami-chan." She smiled as she took the proffered taiyaki, and bit down into the warm treat. Her friend sat down next to her, and leaned her head into Yami's shoulder, her spiked up hair brushing across Yami's face. "You have a surprisingly sweet imagination, Yami-chan. If you want this to happen for real, you just have to ask. But this isn't reality."<p>

Konjiki no Yami happily ate her Taiyaki.

* * *

><p>Satellizer el Bridget sat on the ground in a lush garden, a picnic spread between her and an older woman. The woman quietly sipped a cup of tea. Sitting the cup down she reached over and cupped Satellizer's cheek. "I'm sorry, but you can't stay here."<p>

"Mother…"

* * *

><p>Astraea sat at a table covered with food. More food than she had ever imagined, ever imagined imagining! As she started to eat, a voice interrupted her. "Delta. What do you think you are doing?"<p>

Astraea looked at the blue haired girl in confusion.

* * *

><p>"Daddy! Look at how well I did!" Elise jumped out of the simulator and ran up to her father, hugging him tightly. "I defeated the WORM all by myself!"<p>

"That you did sweetie, that you did. Unfortunately you need to go now." His daughter looked up at him as if she didn't understand his words.

* * *

><p>Cecilia ran down the beach, laughing giggling as she went. She turned around to look at the boy following behind her. He was panting as if he'd just run a marathon. She smiled and ran up to him. He grabbed her hands, pulling her close. "Cecilia-san, I have something important to tell you." She smiled in anticipation. "You have to leave!"<p>

She cocked her head in confusion.

* * *

><p>Perrine flew through the sky, the wind blowing her hair back as she did loops and turns. As she came out of her final loop, she saw a figure standing on the pier far below. The figure held a sheathed Katana, an eyepatch covered one of her eyes. Perrine flew down and came to a stop before the woman.<p>

"Ha ha ha! Great job Perinne. You've improved dramatically. However it is time for you to move onwards!" Perrine didn't quite grasp what she had heard.

* * *

><p>Two robots, one red and gold, the other purple and silver, stood in a wide open field. Beneath them, two girls dressed in the same colors, spun around each other in an intricate dance. Golden curls and lavender tresses whipped about their faces. As they came around, they locked their arms and presented with a flourish. "Princess Shine," the lavender haired girl's tone was friendly, but respectful, "it is time for you to depart."<p>

The dance began once again.

* * *

><p>Evangeline stood in the grey emptiness, arms crossed, her left toe tapping impatiently. She was concentrating hard on a single thought, resisting the others trying to force their way into her mind.<p>

"Fine! Fine! I give in. Here I am." The truly enormous figure appeared in an instant. The term "mountainous" came to mind when looking at him. Bare from the waist up, his chest and arms were covered with scars, his hair wild and unruly. However whatever intimidation his appearance would provide was spoiled by the massive, almost boyish, grin on his face. "But why me? Surely there are other people you would want to meet before me."

"No, really?" Evangeline's tone was withering. "Actually, I want you because you are almost the last person I would want to talk to. I need to keep my wits straight, and not caught up in some disgusting adolescent fantasy. That out of the way, I want to talk to whoever's behind this mess, 'Jack Rakan'"

"I have no idea what you are talking about." Rakan's tone was filled with wounded innocence. "Certainly the Witch out there is the one who did this, I don't know why you'd expect a figment of your imagination to be able to help."

"That witch tried to put us into a nightmare, but something intervened and shoved us into Cosmo Entelekheia-lite. I want to talk to them. I'm quite irritated with them." Evangeline may have been all of a third Rakan's height, and much less than a third of his mass, but she looked for all the world like she had no idea that that was the case.

"You can't."

"Oh, really?" Her voice could have dried up the Amazon, but Rakan was unphased.

"Yes, really. Sure, it would make things simpler, but if sh...they could just interfere like that, you wouldn't even be in this situation. So here you are, having a conversation with me." He stopped as if considering for a moment. "However I can tell you this, if you can deal with the Witch, at the very least you can all go home. Perhaps more will happen. I'm not really sure."

"So how do I get out of here, and get back to there, so I can deal with that stupid Witch?"

"Why that is simplicity itself, my dear Kitty," Evangeline bristled at that "all you have to do is want to leave. The only person keeping you here, is you." Rakan gave a wide toothy smile.

* * *

><p>Kyouko knelt down before the prostrate Mami. "You see, you are in a special position right now. You provide a link, a connection to someone else. That link has its ups and downs. On the downside, it brought out Kriemhild Gretchen. However on the upside, it can save you, and all your new friends." Kyouko finished off her Pocky stick, and replaced it with a new one. "However, you are going to have to learn something horrible first. I wish there could be another way, but in order to connect to her, you have to have an understanding of what is truly going on."<p>

Mami looked up at the redhaired girl, and finally nodded her head. She pushed herself upwards and sat cross-legged on the grey "ground". "I'm ready, Sakura-san. I want to save them."

Kyouko smiled, "good, though whether or not you'll agree after you learn the truth..." she trailed off a bit. "There are some others who need to be here as well. I didn't want to bring them in, since you don't know them yet." She made a motion with her right hand, and three figures appeared out of the grey nothingness.

A slim, dark haired girl, wearing a very severe outfit with a shield on her left arm. "Tomoe Mami. Are you prepared to learn the truth?"

A blue haired girl, who's outfit was cut with an angle, a white cape over her shoulders. "Mami-san, I'm sorry that you are going to have to find out about this this way."

Finally, walking up to stand between the blue haired girl and the dark haired girl, a small girl with pink hair done up in short twintails, a slight smile on her face. "Its good to see you again, Mami-san." She reached down and cupped Mami's face with a white-gloved hand. "I know this will be hard for you, but please listen and understand." She sat down in front of Mami, Kyouko and the others arrayed behind her. "My name is Kaname Madoka..."

* * *

><p>Madoka stood up, and looked down at Mami. "I'm so sorry. I wanted you to not have to learn this until the proper time, but it was necessary. But I want you to understand that it will all be worthwhile. It was not pleasant for any of us, and even worse for some," she turned at that and caressed the dark haired girl's cheek lovingly, then turned back to Mami, "but it was necessary. It will be necessary. But for it to happen, you must do this now." Madoka gave Mami a smile, tinged with a bit of sadness.<p>

Mami looked up, tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn't want to believe what she had been told, but she looked up into the soft pink eyes, and knew that it was the truth. She felt a cloth on her cheeks, wiping her tears away. "Sakura...san?" Her voice was choked, trying to hold back even more tears. Kyouko grabbed Mami's hand, pulling the older girl to her feet. She wrapped her arms around the weeping blonde and held her tight. Mami felt the warmth of her friend, the trust and comfort in her arms, and she let go, and cried.

As the tears finally came to an end, Kyouko looked Mami in the eyes once again. "This is something only you can do, and I wish it didn't have to be you, that you didn't have to learn now what we know. I am so sorry to have to lay this burden on you. You were always an inspiration to us. Not just to me, but to Madoka, Sayaka and even Homura. I know you hadn't met them yet, but trust me, without you, none of us would have been able to do what was necessary." She turned and walked over to where Madoka and the others were waiting. Stopping behind Madoka, she turned once more and looked at Mami. "Go for it. Mami." She whispered something to Madoka, who nodded in response. For a moment it looked like Madoka's eyes flashed gold, and then the four were gone. Leaving Mami alone in the grey emptiness.

Lifting her hand, her Soul Gem appeared, balanced delicately on her palm. Mami closed her eyes, and concentrated on what Madoka had told her to do. A moment later she opened her eyes. She was no longer in the grey emptiness, but back on the blasted floating island, with Kriemhild Gretchen still looming high into the sky. "Oh good, you're back. I thought you would be the first one." Mami turned at the voice, it was Evangeline, once again clothed in her short black dress. Arrayed on the ground were the unconscious bodies of the rest, the slumped over Fairlion sat a short distance away. A low groaning sound started, emanating from Kriemhild Gretchen's enormous, looming form. "I don't think she's very happy. You do what you need to do, I'll hold her off." Evangeline began an incantation, on her left hand an orb of pure darkness appeared and on the right, a crackling orb of ice. _Magia Erebea! ETERNAL QUEEN OF ICE AND DARKNESS!_ Evangeline's voice cracked through the air, air which had gained a sharp chill. A cape of formless night surrounded the vampire, wings of ice emerging from her back. Without another word, she took off towards the towering Witch.

"Good luck, Evangeline-san." Mami returned her attention to the Soul Gem in her hands, and what she had to do to bring everyone else back. She closed her eyes, and concentrated her mind, reaching out with her magic, she felt herself connected to something greater, a kind warmth that even in this situation filled her with hope. A pink colored warmth filled Mami, she gathered the warmth, combined it with her magic, and directed it outwards.

"Fate Testarossa Harlaown"

* * *

><p>"This is no longer your dream. It was once, yes, but no longer. I'm honored that you wished to have known me, and I wish I had known you, the younger sister I always wanted. But you've grown beyond me, you have a family of your own now, you need to return to them." Alicia reached up, standing on her tip toes and just barely managing to touch Fate's face. She turns Fate's gaze, towards another figure. A woman with long, rust-red hair and lavender eyes, holding a blonde haired girl with mismatched red and green eyes. "See, they are waiting for you to return."<p>

"Nanoha...Vivio..." tears welled up in Fate's eyes as it all came rushing back. "How...how do I leave?" A pink light enveloped Fate.

Alicia smiled up at her younger sister. "Just like that. Goodbye, Fate. Remember. _Trust in the light of hope_."

Fate vanished into the light.

"Iczer-1"

* * *

><p>Iczer was no longer in bed with Nagisa, she was now in the cockpit of the Iczer Robo, she could feel Nagisa's presence in the core beneath her. "How..."<p>

"We both knew our time together was limited, and I wish it could have been another way." Nagisa's voice rang through Iczer's cockpit. "But even the technology of the Cthulhu could only do so much for a human." Iczer felt tears well up in her eyes as she remembered, Nagisa growing old and finally passing away, all while Iczer remained eternal and unchanging. "You cannot stay here, I know you want to be with me, but I will always be in your heart, when you fight to protect Earth you are strengthened by your memories of me. Go, Iczer. Your sisters await your return, and your fight is far from over..._Trust in the light of hope_"

As Nagisa's voice faded away, Iczer could no longer feel her presence in the Iczer Robo's core. "Nagisa!" But she knew it was futile. Looking upwards, she saw two figures hovering in the air before the Iczer Robo. A hard eyed woman with long, blood-red hair, and a young looking girl with wild, braided silver hair. Warm pink light flooded the Iczer Robo's cockpit.

"Konjiki no Yami"

* * *

><p>Mikan used her finger to wipe a bit of Taiyaki filling off Yami's cheek. She stuck the finger in her mouth, "as good as this Taiyaki tastes, Yami-chan, it will taste even better when we do this for real." She smiled at Yami's confused expression. "I'm so glad that I'm the one you wanted to see, the one whom you most desired in your heart, but its no good if you don't tell the real Yuuki Mikan. I'm just a fragment, the real Mikan is waiting for you. Go back to her, and have some Taiyaki with her."<p>

Yami felt something slick on her face. She was crying, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. "Yuuki Mikan, I..." she was at a loss for words, not knowing how to process the feelings she just finally understood. A soft hand wiped away the tears.

"Its ok, Yami-chan. Go back, and let the real Mikan know. She's been waiting for you." Mikan smiled, and started to fade away. "Yami-chan, _Trust in the light of hope_." And she was gone. Pink light enveloped Konjiki no Yami.

"Sattelizer el Bridget"

* * *

><p>"I'm so sorry Sattelizer, I wish I could have done more for you, I failed you as a mother." The blonde woman set her tea cup down and looked into her daughter's eyes. "But for all of that, you cannot stay here, no matter how much you wish things could have been different."<p>

"No, mother. You weren't a failure, its just...th..." a finger pressed itself against Sattelizer's lips.

"Do not dwell in the past. Go back, help your friends, and then return to the friends you left behind." She looked to the side, Sattelizer followed her gaze, and saw a teenage boy standing with two girls, one with braided blue hair, the other a redhead in twintails.

"Ganessa, Linchen...Kazuya..." tears welled up in her eyes as she remembered.

"Go, my daughter. Make me proud. And remember, _Trust in the light of hope_." Pink light enveloped Sattelizer as her mother's voice faded away.

"Angeloid Type-Delta Astraea"

* * *

><p>"Delta." Astraea looked up at the blue haired girl sitting at the other end of the table. "Go."<p>

Astraea continued stuffing her face with food, confused as to what the Beta was talking about. Suddenly she found herself laying on the floor. Her chair having been tipped over backwards. Looking upwards she made eye contact with a pink-haired Angeloid holding a watermelon. In a moment, the irritated Beta's head popped into view. "We don't have time to mess around with you, Delta. Go, and when you are done, you can have all the real food you want." Astraea popped into a sitting position.

"Wait, this isn't real?" Her stomach rumbled as if she hadn't eaten a thing. "How do I get out of here?" The Beta, no...Nymph, sighed.

"Just go. And remember, _Trust in the light of hope._" A pink light enveloped Astraea, the last thing she saw was Ikaros waving goodbye.

"Elise von Dietrich"

* * *

><p>"Daddy! I did it! I defeated the WORMs!" Elise jumped up and hugged her father, hanging from his neck until he relented and picked her up.<p>

"That you did, Elise. A great job. But your job isn't over yet." He looked down into his daughter's eyes. "I'm so glad you wanted to see me again, but this isn't a place you can stay. You need to return, there is a job only you can do, and you can't do it here." He lowered Elise back to the ground, but stayed knelt at eye level with her. "I am so incredibly proud of you."

Elise felt tears welling in her eyes as she remembered, remembered that day in Germany. "No, daddy, I..." He wiped her tears and smiled at her.

"You cannot change what happened in the past, but you can continue to protect the world, not from WORMs, but from new enemies. That is the greatest honor you could bring me. Go and help your friends, and remember that you always have people ready to support you." Elise could see over her father's shoulder, and behind him were three girls in nanosuits. She swallowed her tears and nodded in acknowledgement. "Thats my girl. Now go. And remember, _Trust in the light of hope_." Pink light filled her vision

"Cecilia Alcott"

* * *

><p>"Ichika, I don't..." Cecilia couldn't understand why he said that. Leave? Leave for where?<p>

He gripped her hands tighter. "You don't want to be here, this isn't real. Go and finish what you started, and come back to us." Cecilia looked down at the hands gripping her own, and then up again. Behind Ichika she could see her other friends, waiting. "I know you think you want to stay, but this isn't how things should be. Please, Cecilia-san. Listen."

Cecilia's mind was suddenly filled with the memories of what had happened, what was really going on. She knew that Ichika was right. She didn't want to stay here, in nothing more than a dream. "I'll be back, Ichika. For you. For all of us." She pulled away from his hands and stepped backwards. A pink light washed over her.

Ichika's last words reached out to her "_Trust in_ _the light of hope_".

"Perrine H. Clostermann"

* * *

><p>"That was a great maneuver, Perrine!" The eyepatched major pounded Perrine on the shoulder in congratulations. "But! Its not over, you still have a job to do, so no lollygagging around here!" The major laughed a hearty laugh as Perrine looked on in confusion. "Oh, do you not remember? You are still on a mission! Not with the 501st, of course, but we'll consider it detached duty. I wish I could be there with you, but it looks like you've found some good comrades."<p>

Perrine remembered, and stood up straight. "Yes, Major! Flying Officer Clostermann will now return to her duties!" She saluted Major Sakamoto Mio, who saluted in return. And from behind Mio, stepped the other members of the 501st, saluting in turn. "Everyone...thank you!"

"Remember, Perrine." Mio's voice was more somber, "_Trust in the light of hope_." Light washed over Perrine.

"Shine Hausen"

* * *

><p>"Princess. It is time for you to return to duty." Latooni stopped the dance once again, and looked into the golden eyes of her best friend. "We all have duties to perform, right now your duty is more pressing than it has ever been before." The lavender haired girl was always serious, but Shine could tell this was something even more important.<p>

"Latooni, I...I..." Shine tried to remember, tried to recall what her duty was. And then in a flash it came back to her. "Thank you, Latooni. Thank you." She grabbed her friend in a hug. "I'll be back soon, and then we can go dancing for real." She backed away, till she was beneath her Fairlion. Pink light enveloped her vision, and a few last words drifted to her ears.

"Princess, _Trust in the light of hope._"

* * *

><p>Mami opened her eyes, afraid at what she would see. Serving as the conduit, the way to bring her friends back...it had been even harder than she'd imagined, and she couldn't bear the thought of it not having worked. Light returned to her world, and before her were her new friends, the people she'd fought against and fought beside. Relief washed over her, along with the mental toll her work had caused. Her knees buckled and she started to fall to the ground, only to be caught by a pair of black gloved arms. "Fate-san..."<p>

Fate held Mami as the rest gathered around. "We all seem to know what is going on, I guess that is part of what you did to bring us back. Thank you." The rest echoed Fate's words. Mami blushed a bit, but surprisingly she was already feeling better, so she pulled away from Fate and stood on her own.

"Evangeline-san is fighting Kriemhild Gretchen alone. We have to go help her. I don't know how we'll defeat a witch that powerful, but we have to try."

* * *

><p>Evangeline was struggling. Kriemhild Gretchen wasn't fighting directly, she seemed to be generating other witches to fight against her. Every time she defeated one, another took its place. Right now she was locked in aerial combat against a massive witch, looking like an upside down woman with gears instead of legs. A creepy, cackling laughter filled the air. The events of the last 24 hours had left her exhausted, and even with the boost from Galaxia's blood, Evangeline knew she couldn't hold out much longer. The cackling witch spawned a dozen figures, looking like silhouettes of magical girls. They attacked with swords and spears and guns, each one Evangeline destroyed was replaced by another. She found herself surrounded on all sides, above and below, when without warning streaks of red and blue shot upwards, destroying almost all of the silhouettes. Two figures descended back towards Evangeline, Astraea and Sattelizer. Sattelizer had grown two wings of metal from her back, providing a sharp contrast to the elegant pure white wings of the Angeloid. Almost simultaneously, a shout from behind drew Evangeline's attention, and she saw the upside down witch split in half, top to bottom, cleaved by a massive sword of yellow light and then the Fairlion appeared, smashing straight through its back, the four pieces of the witch exploding behind the robot.<p>

Even as the explosion faded, more witches appeared. shadow like a kneeling woman shot tendrils of darkness at Evangeline and the two swordswoman, but they were intercepted by golden blades of hair. Konjiki no Yami, black bat wings emerging from her back, intercepted each of the shadow witch's attacks. A quartet of green lasers pierced the witch's body, causing it to evaporate into mist. Yami looked up to where Cecilia hovered, as the four Tears docked back with her IS, a slight smile touching the quiet girl's face.

Iczer-1 was locked in battle with a massive black snake, its head a clown mask its mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. Each time she thought she destroyed it, it regenerated itself. It was like battling a single-headed hydra and while she was easily able to fend it off, she could not figure out how to keep it down. As it regenerated again, a yellow flash caught her eye, it was Mami, flying down towards the tail of the "snake". She could just barely see what happened, as the drill-haired girl pulled a pistol out of her skirt, mouthed a few words Iczer couldn't catch and shot the tail of the snake. The witch vanished, gone for good this time.

The clash of metal on metal rang in the air as Elise and Perrine dueled the Mermaid Knight. As they fought the witch, they could almost hear music, violins and guitars, so faint they might not even be there at all. Elise blocked a strike with her lance, as Perrine dashed in and stabbed at the mermaid's tail, but her rapier's point skittered off the armored scales. Retreating, Perrine looked up towards Elise and motioned with her hand. Elise nodded in response and then threw her lance with all the power Bachastelze could muster. The lance's monomolecular blade pierced the mermaid's chest, causing it to howl in anger. Before it could respond further, Perrine pointed her sword at the mermaid, "Tonerre!" her shout was followed by her trademark electrical discharge, which struck the lance like a lightning rod, frying the mermaid. The witch crumbled away into ash.

Perrine and Elise looked around, no more witches filled the air, just the massive looming bulk of Kriemhild Gretchen. "Everyone, gather around the Fairlion." Fate's voice crackled over Elise's communication channel, and looking she saw that the rest had already gathered near the red and gold robot. Motioning to Perrine, the two flew over to join the other nine. Arriving, they found most of them standing on the Fairlion's outstretched palms, with Cecilia hovering just beyond them. Neither being equipped for standing at the moment, they joined the British girl. Moments later a massive roar filled the air, and the towering tree that was Kriemhild Gretchen began to shift.

"We don't have much time, but I think I understand now what we need to do." Everyone looked over towards Mami, who had changed back to her civilian clothes, and was holding her Soul Gem. "We can't defeat Kriemhild Gretchen, but we can serve as a channel to the one who can. We need to trust in hope, and use its power." The rest, remembering the last words they had been told in the dreams, nodded in agreement. Mami closed her eyes and held her Soul Gem out before her, and she hoped. The rest did the same. What they did precisely they could not say, but they knew what to do regardless. Power flowed through them, from somewhere else, into their bodies, and then out once more, gathering into Mami's Soul Gem. As one they opened their eyes, and found Mami's Soul Gem to be glowing with a brilliant, blinding pink light. The light grew till they couldn't bear to look anymore, and then vanished, in its place was a bow, floating in the air. Mami reached out and grabbed the weapon, looking up towards the massive witch. Kriemhild Gretchen had changed completely, instead of a featureless tree, she now appeared as a terrifying face, looming down from above, descending towards the eleven girls. "This is our last shot, I can only do this once. Lets make it count." Mami's voice was firm.

"Alright everyone, lets soften it up so Mami can make her shot count." Fate's command instincts took over, and she quickly directed the others in what to do. They nodded in response and scattered away, except for Astraea, Satellizer and Yami, who would stay with Mami, just in case. The rest took up their positions, Kriemhild Gretchen descending towards them slowly, filling the sky above.

Fate opened the assault. Hundreds, thousands of brilliant yellow lights appeared below her as she quietly chanted. Reaching the end of her chant, Fate thrust Bardiche towards the massive witch "Photon Lancer Genocide Shift!" her and Bardiche spoke in unison, thousands upon thousands of missiles shot forward, impacting on Kriemhild Gretchen. A roar of outrage and pain came back from above, felt as much as heard. Moments later, Cecilia and Elise opened fire with all of their remaining weaponry. Brilliant lasers followed Fate's missiles, normal missiles, the last aboard both Blue Tears and Bachastelze followed. A rolling explosion skittered across Kriemhild Gretchen, the roaring intensifying in response.

"Tonerre Ecclamente!" Perrine threw all the magic power she had left into one last discharge, a massive blue-white bolt of lightning connected her and the witch for the briefest of moments, it illuminated the sky darkened by Gretchen, showing the mask was pitted and scored by the attacks, and in a few gaps, a void of nothingness could be seen.

"Everyone! Open up those gaps! That is what I need to hit!" Mami's voice came to the others. As she spoke, Kriemhild Gretchen began to spawn Witches again, Mami found herself in the middle of a storm of combat as her three guards fought off assaults by half a dozen witches. Even more were confronting the rest, each one which was destroyed was replaced by another. Mami felt the air grow cold, and a prickling on her skin like static electricity, a voice chanting in a language she both did, and did not understand came over the air.

Evangeline was in the middle of the storm of witches, chanting. She effortlessly dodged attacks as she spoke. _"__Heed the Contract and Serve Me, Darkness, Ice and Snow, the Queen of Eternity! The Coursing White Rose of Ice, the Sleeping Eternal Garden! Come, Unending Darkness, Eternal Glacier! Imprison the soulless puppets with frozen Lightning! The enchanting tranquility, The eternal prison of White roses blooming in profusion! ENDLESS WHITE NINE HEAVENS!_" The moment the chant stopped, every witch was frozen in place, floating in mid-air encased in a block of crystal clear ice. Since they weren't destroyed, they weren't replaced. "This won't last long, finish it off! Shine, Iczer!" Evangeline's voice was strained but firm.

Iczer concentrated, gathering all the power she had remaining. A blue fiery glow surrounded her. She brought that power to her outstretched hands, bringing them together with a crash. "Iczer Beam Full Power!" A massive beam of blue light shot towards Kriemhild Gretchen, the accompanied by the Fairlion's golden Vostock Laser. The two beams twisted together, seeming to grow in power as they spun in a blue and gold spiral. They didn't just hit the mask, they blasted straight through it. A gaping hole of swirling nothingness left in its wake.

Mami raised the bow, it was fairly plain brown wood, without even a string to pull back, but that didn't matter. She reached for where the string would be, her fingers caught anyway, and as she pulled back, a brilliant pink string appeared. As she drew the bow, a similarly pink arrow flared to life and the bow itself began to grow, as if it itself were a living piece of wood. The bow and arrow alike grew larger and large, finally at full draw the arrow was over a meter long, the bow had grown to massive proportions and at the very top a brilliant pink rose had bloomed. Mami felt energy pour into the arrow, for a moment it flared in different colors. Gold, red, blue, purple and finally back to pink. It was time. It felt like she hadn't aimed at all, but at the same time she knew she would not miss. Her fingers released the arrow. It crossed the space to Kriemhild Gretchen in an instant, vanishing into the dark nothingness. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, but then a brilliant pink light burst out of the holes in the mask, cracks appeared in the rest of it, and without any further warning it shattered.

Moments later, the very fabric of reality shattered as well.


	13. Epilogue: Fragments of Hope

**Epilogue: Fragments of Hope**

Silver hair, done up in two long tails swirled behind the white dressed woman as she stormed into the room. If there had been a door she would have slammed it behind her. Her silver eyes gave away how enraged she was at the person before her. "I thought she was dead! What were you thinking?" The object of the silver woman's displeasure casually took a sip of tea before turning her attention to her interrogator. Her golden eyes the very picture of innocence.

"Of course she wasn't dead, I could no more kill her than she could kill me. We are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. Isn't it the same with you and Galaxia?" The woman stood, her pink hair seemed to float like a cloud behind her, "speaking of which, she's the one you should be angry at, though to be fair, she certainly lived up to her position as the embodiment of chaos." Gliding over to the window, the golden eyed woman pondered the view before her, though precisely what that view was of would have been open to interpretation, if there had been anyone else but the two of them present. "If Kriemhild Gretchen is my responsibility, which to be fair she is, to an extent, then Galaxia is yours. Isn't that right, Sailor Cosmos?"

Sailor Cosmos glared at the woman for a moment more, then sighed, "I guess you're right, Madoka." She sat down in one of the other chairs and poured herself a cup of tea, "it just offends my sense of order to have something like this happen." Taking a sip, she sat staring into the cup for a few moments. "It also bothers me how blasé you are over all of this. Kriemhild Gretchen isn't like us, or even like Galaxia. If we let her run free it will cause all sorts of problems, the others might even step in." Cosmos took another sip, but her eyes never left Madoka.

"Very true, but remember, you must always have hope." Cosmos snorted at that, but Madoka only smiled. "While we were unable to reseal Kriemhild Gretchen, those girls did manage to wound her badly. In fact she had to split herself, and is now hidden in four different dimensions." Sailor Cosmos straightened up at that, "but before I go on...ah, they are here." Madoka gestured and suddenly eleven figures joined the two goddesses. Floating in the air, seemingly asleep, were the girls who'd fought so hard against Galaxia and Kriemhild Gretchen. Cosmos ran her gaze over the girls, before turning back to Madoka expectantly.

Madoka gazed back at the silver goddess, finally giving what may have been a very slight sigh of resignation. "Very well" she made a slight gesture with her hand and four images appeared over the table the tea set sat on. Cosmos leaned forward, taking a closer look at the four views. In another time and place they would be likened to holographic projections, but in truth they were far more than that, Cosmos knew that if she looked hard enough (and she was more than capable of it) she'd be able to see as much detail as she wanted, these were no mere recorded images, but actual windows into other dimensions. "These are the four dimensions where the fragments of Kriemhild Gretchen now reside."

"Thats rather vague, I assume you mean these are the places and times where you expect her to reemerge."

"Indeed. Specifically," she gestured at one of the images, featuring what looked like a large campus of some sort, dominated by a truly enormous tree, "Mahora Academy, Japan." She gestured to the next, where a tower pierced through a layer of clouds, floating near the tower was a green filled continent. "Metafalica, Ar Ciel." Madoka gave Cosmos a wry grin "that is the most unusual one, and its surprising she'd be drawn so far away." She gestured to the next, where a large city-ship could be seen flying over mountains. "City-ship Musashi, Divine States. Another unusual one, though not quite so much." Finally she indicated the last image, the most normal of them all, a very ordinary looking city with nothing special about it. "Mitakihara, Japan." Cosmos actually whistled in reaction.

"Is it...?"

"Yes, it is. Its the final one. The one where she is." Madoka's smile had taken on a wan cast, as if she were remembering something painful. "It's not surprising, really, that Gretchen would be drawn there. It's home, after all." She reached out towards the image, as if she wanted to reach inside it, but pulled her gloved hand away after just a moment.

"So what are you going to do about it?" Cosmos was leaning forward now, regarding her fellow goddess intently.

"Unfortunately our hands will be even more tied now, my limited intervention was only possible due to the constructed nature of that world, in 'real' universes I have even fewer options. Luckily however those worlds are not without their own defenses, and these girls here give us a few more options." The heels of Madoka's thigh length boots clicked as she walked over to the floating, unconscious girls. "What we can do is reinforce those universes, and they will be the key to that." Madoka approached the first of the girls, Fate, and gently cupped the mage's cheek with one hand. She stood there for a few seconds, then very lightly kissed Fate on the forehead. A moment later Fate vanished. Madoka went down the line, touching each girl's cheek followed by a light kiss on the forehead. Finally she reached the last two remaining girls.

"Mami-san." Her voice was soft, meant only for the two of them, though she knew that Cosmos could listen in if she wished, but she didn't mind. "This will be harder on you than the others, I wish I didn't have to send you back, but some things even I cannot change." With a touch and a kiss, Mami vanished. Instead of moving on to Evangeline, Madoka turned and walked back to the sitting area, sitting down into the chair next to Sailor Cosmos. Cosmos turned slightly, opening her mouth as if to speak, but apparently decided to keep observing instead. She turned to face forward once more, at the tiny, black clad vampire.

* * *

><p>Evangeline felt consciousness return, not as sluggishly as when she was nearly killed by Galaxia, but slow enough that she could follow each individual sense returning. A cool hardness beneath her bare feet, a slight whiff of hot tea, the rattling of cups, and finally light, as her eyes opened once more. The room she was in was large and spacious, open arched windows covered the curving walls, walls she realized made the room a perfect circle. The windows all looked out onto a perfect, cloudless blue sky, except for one that was filled with darkness. The door, of course. In the middle of the room sat a cozy sitting area, four comfortable chairs around a plain yet elegant table. Two of the chairs were occupied, and Evangeline found herself under the gaze of two pairs of eyes. One of liquid gold, the other of molten silver. The woman with the golden eyes, her pink hair cascading down her back, leaned forward a bit. "So, Evangeline Athanasia Katherine McDowell, I understand you wished to speak to me." Evangeline smiled and made her way to the table.<p>

* * *

><p>"Lightning 1, this is Long Arch Command, do you read?" Hayate repeated the message again, suddenly feeling anxious. She looked around at her command staff, who shook their heads at her unasked question. "I repeat, Lightning 1, do you read?"<p>

"Long Arch Command, this is Lightning 1, I read you fine. What is wrong?" Fate's voice came clearly over the magical link. Hayate exhaled the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

"Lightning 1, you dropped off both scanners and radio contact for five minutes. What happened out there Fate-chan?" Hayate generally tried to stay formal in official communication, but she'd been incredibly worried. Though not as worried as a certain someone else.

"Nothing happened, you say I was off the grid for five minutes?" Fate checked her chronometer, and was shocked to see it was indeed off by five minutes. "Last thing I remember was arriving at the site of the signal and checking in, as far as I can tell that was just moments ago." She looked down towards Bardiche.

"Chronometer off by five minutes. Reason Unknown." Bardiche's bland voice confirmed what they already knew.

"Well, we'll look into it later. Stars 1 is on her way to your position, in fact she should be there any moment..." Hayate's voice dropped from Fate's attention as another, even more familiar one broke into Fate's awareness.

"Fate-chan!" With a sudden thump, Fate found herself grabbed from behind. "I was so worried Fate-chan!" Fate twisted around in the embrace and found herself just inches from a pair of deep purple eyes. Fate returned the embrace, and lowered her head enough to take her wife's lips with her own. A few moments, which felt like an eternity, later, Fate broke the kiss.

"Nanoha, I'm home."

* * *

><p>Mami walked across the pedestrian bridge, her Soul Gem in her outstretched hand. She had been following a Witch trace, but all of a sudden it vanished. Looking down at her gem in confusion, she came to a halt. Turning in place, as if trying to improve the signal, led to nothing. "Tomoe Mami." The voice rang in her head, but despite that she could tell the direction it came from. Turning around she faced the small, pink eyed creature sitting casually on the bridge railing. "I have been attempting to contact you for some time." Its tail twitched slightly, but its face remained the same, ever unchanging smile.<p>

"Perhaps I was concentrating to hard on following the Witch." Mami thought that that was unlikely, but she felt as if she didn't want to talk to Kyubey right this moment. Something about him pricked at the back of her mind, but try as she might she couldn't drag it forward. "You said you were trying to contact me? Is it a Witch? The trace I was following suddenly vanished."

"Strange. There are no other Magical Girls in this city since Sakura Kyouko left." Kyubey seemed oblivious to the darkening of Mami's expression at the mention of that name. "Whatever it was, it will probably show up again. No need to worry about that. What is important is that I've found a promising new candidate to become a Magical Girl." Mami considered that, she could use help, Mitakihara was a bit large for a single Magical Girl to cover all by herself.

"A new candidate? So you haven't contracted with her yet?"

"No, not yet. I only just found her today. Though it turns out she's a student at your school. Perhaps you could assist in the recruitment."

"Perhaps. What is her name?"

"Kaname Madoka."

* * *

><p>Perrine was flying over the ocean. She had been following a human Neuroi, but all of a sudden it was gone. Perrine hadn't done anything to it, just one moment it was there, the next...nothing. Coming to halt, she hovered in place, deep in thought. She'd been sent to examine the anomaly Sanya reported, and then there was the Neuroi...but now what? She pondered the series of events, until her concentration was disrupted by someone calling her name. "Perrine-san! Perrine-san!" Perrine spun around and saw two other witches approaching.<p>

"Yoshika-san, Lynette-san, what are you doing here?" Perrine knew they'd been out on a different patrol, so why were they here?

"Sakamoto-san sent us to join up with you, she was worried that you were all alone." Perrine felt a rush of pleasure at hearing the Major was worried, enough that it over road her usual irritation at Yoshika's overly familiar way of addressing the Major. "Did you find anything?"

"I...no, I didn't find anything." Perrine almost told the other two about the Human Neuroi, but Yoshika still wasn't very reasonable where they were concerned, and she felt it was more important to go back to base, not go haring off even further. She'd report to the Major and the Colonel when they got back, they'd know what to do. "Let's go back, it seems it was a false signal." Yoshika nodded in assent, as did Lynette, though not before giving Perrine a strange look.

The three witches turned and began the flight back to base, Perrine looked over her shoulder one last time, but there was nothing there but the endless ocean and sky.

* * *

><p>"Elise? Elise? Are you ok? Elise!" Elise opened her eyes at the urgency in the voice, standing above her were her three friends. Otoha was still repeating her name, while Karen was fidgeting and seemingly fighting back tears. Eika stood a bit further back, but worry was plain on her face. "Oh, Elise!" Elise found herself suddenly gathered into a massive hug by Otoha, as the outgoing girl noticed she'd woken up. "I'm so glad you're ok. We were so worried when we lost contact."<p>

"Lost contact?" Elise repeated the words like an idiot, and suddenly realized she was on the ground. Last thing she remembered was doing a WORM patrol from the _Kouryuu_, but now she lying on her back in a pile of foliage. "Where am I?" She tried to sit up, and realized that she was half disconnected from Bachstelze. "Bach!" She hurriedly brought up the Sonic Diver's displays, and was heartened to see that it was fine, and had just automatically shut off after she crashed.

"We're not sure," Eika answered her question, "Bachstelze dropped off _Kouryuu_'s radar, so we were vectored in to make sure you were ok. We found you crashed on this island. You don't remember anything?" Elise shook her head and queried Bachstelze's recorders. Sure enough, they registered her losing control and making an AI assisted crash landing on the nearest solid ground.

"I have no memory of any of this." Elise knew she should feel more worried than she was, but something seemed to be keeping her from thinking too hard about it. By this time, Otoha had moved over to Karen, who was still fighting back tears, despite Elise being fine. "Bach seems perfectly operational, and I feel fine now, so let's head back to _Kouryuu_." Eika nodded her assent, and turned to head back towards the other three Sonic Divers, which Elise could see a few dozen meters away. She strapped herself securely back into Bach, and stood it up. By the time she'd double checked all the systems, Eika and Otoha had gotten Karen back together and the three were waiting down near the water.

The four Sonic Divers lifted into the air, transformed into cruising mode and shot towards the horizon.

* * *

><p>IS Blue Tears fell towards the ocean below. Its alarms blared, attempting to rouse its unconscious pilot. Then, in the gap between on moment and the next, Cecilia awoke. Her instincts saved her life as she instantly regained control and fell into a hover, just a bare few dozen meters over the water. "What in the world..." she spoke the words quietly to herself as she examined the Blue Tears telemetry. She'd been off on an independent training run, and then...something happened and she lost consciousness and control. Then she came back. The data in Blue Tears' records was clear, but she had no memory of it at all, and there was no indication of what could have caused it. She decided that discretion was called for, and turned to head back to the school. She didn't want to take any risks of this happening again.<p>

A few minutes later two signals appeared on her radar, and within moments Charlotte and Lingyin pulled up before her. "Oh Cecilia-san, its great to see you are ok!" Charlotte seemed to have really been worried, and Lingyin barely managed to suppress her own worry. "We received an emergency signal from Blue Tears, Lingyin-san and I were in the middle of a training bout, so they sent us to check on you. Good to see it was just a false alarm."

"It wasn't...well, there was some sort of systems failure and I blacked out for a few moments." The other two girls gasped at that. "I'm ok now, and Blue Tears seems fine, but I want to get back to the school and have its systems looked at." The blonde French woman and dark haired Chinese girl exchanged glances, they didn't think they'd be so blasé if it happened to them!

"Probably a good idea." Lingying spoke for the first time. "We'll accompany you just in case something else goes wrong." She grimaced for a moment. "Ichika wanted to come too, but Byakushiki is having routine maintenance done, he wanted us to let you know that." Cecilia blushed at that, and was happy both that Ichika was worried, and that Lingying was a good enough friend to pass it on, despite their...rivalry.

Charlotte, having either missed or ignoring the subtleties of the conversation came up and patted them both on the shoulder. "Let's go, we don't want to waste too much time if there is a problem with Blue Tears." Cecilia nodded, and then three headed off, Charlotte and Lingyin bracketing Cecilia, ready to catch her if something happened.

* * *

><p>A sharp mental pain yanked Shine out of the darkness. She recognized it, it was her precognitive sense, but it almost never reached this level of painfulness. Her eyes flew open, and were instantly confronted with chaos. She was in the middle of a massive battle, but instead of up in the air, where she'd been, she and the Fairlion were sprawled on the ground. These thoughts passed in a moment, but it was almost a moment too long. She jerked the control stick to the side, the Fairlion's thrusters skittered it across the ground, just in time to avoid a massive of sickly brown-green tentacles impacting right where she'd been.<p>

"Fairy 1, this is Fairy 2, come in Fairy 1" Latooni's voice, as calm as ever but with just a tinge of worry underlying it crackled over the com.

"Fairy 2, this is Fairy 1, I'm ok, Lat." Shine reactivated the Fairlion's Tesla drive, and the suddenly weightless robot boosted into the sky. "I seem to have suffered a massive system failure, and was knocked unconscious when I hit the ground. But everything seems fine now."

"Do you want to return to the _Hagane_? That sounds serious. We can handle the battle from here." Latooni's voice carried her worry to her friend.

"No, I'll help finish the battle. All the system checks are coming out green, and we need to finish this off as soon as possible." Even as she spoke, she triggered a few blasts from the Rolling Cannon, taking out a small cluster of Jetzt on the ground. She reached where Latooni's Fairlion floated, their robots joining hands.

"Very well, Princess. Are you ready?"

"As always, Latooni."

Their voices rang out together. "W-I3NK SYSTEM, DOUBLE MODE!"

* * *

><p>Something cool and wet was dripping down Astraea's face, while a voice called out to her. "Delta. Delta. Are you ok? Hey, Delta." Astraea's eyes opened, revealing a slightly worried looking Nymph, and a quite distressed Ikaros. Astraea reached up and wiped the mess off her face, it was red and runny, and smelled familiar. A lick of her finger revealed it to be watermelon juice. Nymph had continued talking as Astraea made this revelation. "...and then we heard a crash, and came out to find you face down in the watermelon patch. Alpha's been inconsolable since then, and I've been trying to wake you up for the last twenty minutes. Delta, are you listening!"<p>

"Ah...sorry...I..." Astraea stammered at the tiny Angeloid, who was intently glaring down at her. "I must have fallen due to hunger...I guess. I'm definitely hungry." Astraea's stomach grumbled obediently. "See?" she turned to Ikaros, "sorry about the watermelons though." She scrambled to her feet, Ikaros quickly kneeling down at the patch to examine the damage. "Where is everyone else?"

"Master and Sohara-san went shopping, when they get back we'll make dinner. I guess you can stay for it." Nymph's voice was rather grudging on the last point. "Are you sure you are ok? I can do a scan of your systems if you want. Even if you were hungry you shouldn't fall out of the sky like that."

"No, I'm fine...I just..." Astraea trailed off, as something poked in the back of her mind, but refused to come forward. "...I think I'll remember when the time is right." Nymph gave her a hard look, but just sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

"Very well. But let's get you inside and cleaned up, you're a mess." Nymph grabbed Astraea by the arm and hauled her towards the house, leaving Ikaros behind to tend to her watermelons.

* * *

><p>The impact jolted Satellizer back to consciousness, the fist in her stomach caused her to fly backwards and impact the wall with a resounding crash. "Spacing out, Bridget-san? That would be fatal in a real fight." The accented voice was teasing, but not cruelly so. Satellizer opened her eyes, Lana Linchen stood a few meters away, still in the pose from the blow she'd struck.<p>

"Satellizer-san!" Another voice called out, she looked over to see Kazuya rushing over to her. "What happened? You suddenly seemed to black out, right before she hit you. Are you ok?" He reached out to her, and she took his hand, letting him help her to her feet.

"No, I just..." her voice trailed off, as a memory tickled in her mind, but it was fleeting and she couldn't pin it down. "I just got distracted by a thought, it's nothing really." Kazuya's expression showed that he didn't really believe her, but he wasn't going to push it.

"You are never going to surpass me if you keep doing stuff like that!" A third voice came from her other side, Ganessa, of course. She also walked over, and despite her haughty tone, Satellizer could see concern, concern that she was sure the redhead thought was completely masked.

"I'm fine, really." She shook her head a bit and walked back towards Lana Linchen, still standing in the middle of the training arena. "Ready for another match?"

"Always."

* * *

><p>"Yami-chan? Yami-chan?" Konjiki no Yami felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. "Hey, are you asleep?" Her eyes opened slowly, focusing on the slightly worried face before her. Yuuki Mikan. "Oh, so you are awake. Here, I bought some Taiyaki." The brown haired girl held out a fish shaped pastry, she held another in her other hand.<p>

"Thank you, Yuuki Mikan." She took a bite out of the warm dessert, trying to remember why she'd fallen asleep on the bench. That was very unlike her. She wasn't the type to let her guard down like that. Especially with everything that had been going on. In the back of her mind there was a memory, something she knew she needed to remember, but no matter what she did she couldn't grasp it. A warmth beside her distracted her from her thoughts. Mikan had sat down next to her, and had moved close enough that their legs and shoulders were touching. All other thoughts vanished as the feelings that always came over her when she was close to Mikan dominated her mind. She tried to force them down, but she couldn't.

"It's unusual for you to fall asleep during the day, is everything alright, Yami-chan?" Mikan had a slightly worried look on her face as she turned her head to look at Yami. Yami felt her cheeks heat up as she met the gaze, looking into Mikan's large brown eyes.

"No, everything is fine. No problems at all." Yami turned back to her taiyaki to try and hide her embarrassment. But even as she did so, she snuggled a little closer to Mikan.

* * *

><p>Iczer-1 opened her eyes. She was floating in deep space, exactly where she last remembered being. But there was something...something she...her eyes went wide as she tracked down the memory. If she'd been human she almost certainly would have never managed it, but her mind was not that of a human. She knew now what she had to do. "Sister." she spoke the word in her head, and it transmitted instantly to its target.<p>

"Yes, Onee-sama?" Iczer-2's response came back immediately.

"There's an emergency, we need to head to Earth. Are Iczer-3 and Atros still there?"

"At last report, yes. They are being based there permanently now, while we take care of the outer sectors."

"Good, before we go we need to stop by the mothership, emergency code Delta 4-1-3-9 is now in effect. Make the preparations." If Iczer-1 had been near her sister, she would have seen one of the very rare occasions of Iczer-2 openly displaying shock.

"Are you certain, Onee-sama? That will..."

"Yes, I know. Its only for last resort, unfortunately, I think this qualifies. Take care of it, Iczer-2."

"Yes, Onee-sama. It will be ready by the time you arrive."

Silence once again surrounded Iczer-1, as a single thought went through her mind. "What are you planning, Kaname Madoka?"

* * *

><p>The feel of rough wood under her bare feet prompted Evangeline to open her eyes once more. She was in the basement of her cottage, the six resort spheres on their pedestals behind her. For a long time she didn't move at all, still thinking about what she'd learned from the two goddesses, Kaname Madoka and Sailor Cosmos. Much of what she and others had long suspected had been confirmed, but even more had come as a complete surprise. The plan that was outlined to her was audacious, even for ones such as them, but if they pulled it off...<p>

"Mistress" The voice broke her concentration, looking up she saw one of Chachamaru's sisters standing at the base of the stairs.

"What is it?" She didn't waste courtesy on the dolls, at least not when she was preoccupied.

"There is an emergency. Please come outside." The robot-doll turned and gestured towards the stairs. Evangeline made a slight sigh and made her way upstairs, and out the front door. From the porch of her cottage, she could see out towards the vast expanse of Mahora Academy, but that view was not what drew her attention, besides her shock at seeing the World Tree glowing even brighter than it had during the last festival. What drew her full attention was the sky, or what was shown where the sky over Mahora should have been.

"The Gravekeeper's Palace. Bouya, what have you done?" She turned towards the doll which had followed her outside. "Gather all the rest of the maids, take them to the central command post, let them know you are available to assist with whatever they need done." She headed back into the cottage.

"What will you be doing, Mistress?" The doll showed unusual curiosity, Evangeline made a mental note to look into that.

"I'm going to grab some booze and watch the show with the Old Man! Chachazero! Where are you!" She dashed towards the kitchen, thoughts of Goddesses temporarily banished from her mind.

* * *

><p>The silver haired woman came through the door with significantly less emphasis than she had the last time, and that was not the only difference. The pink haired woman was still waited for her, but she was not alone this time. She sat on the couch in the central sitting area, with a girl asleep next to her, her head lying in the woman's lap. "New arrival?"<p>

Madoka looked up at Cosmos, while absently stroking the girl's long, flaming red hair. "Yes, well, such as it is, at least. She's a little different than most, seems my wish affected some girls who never contracted with the Incubators, but ended up in similar positions." She looked down on the sleeping girl briefly, then up again. "Her more than most, really. If she'd been found by Kyuubey, I'm sure she would have contracted, but she found another source of power. It killed her in the end though, just like it does for my Magical Girls. So now she's here, waiting to be reunited with the one she loves."

As if it were a signal, the last few words caused the girl to stir in her sleep, as a dream rustled to the surface. A single soft word escaped her mouth, Cosmos could just barely hear the three syllables. "Tsu...ba...sa..." She returned to a deeper sleep once more, content in whatever she had remembered.

"So, Cosmos, did you find them?" Madoka stayed seated, not willing to disturb the red haired girl, so Cosmos went ahead and took a seat in the chair across from the couch.

"Yes, I found them." She gave Madoka a hard look. "Are you sure you want to do this? This goes far beyond mere meddling, if the others find out what you plan to do..."

"I know, but it's necessary. Show them to me." Cosmos sighed and made a gesturing motion. Four images floated above the table separating the two Goddesses.

"I found candidates who met the specifications you laid out, they are all fairly ordinary, for somewhat stretched definitions of the term, but none have any special abilities. At least no abilities beyond what is normal for when they live." She looked at Madoka once again, who motioned for her to continue. "Not much else to say, honestly. I can give you their names, but it's going to be up to you to get the two who aren't already in place into the correct universes, and once there to get them to do what is needed." Cosmos hesitated, reluctant to take this last step, without the names Madoka could not execute her plan, but something had to be done and Cosmos hadn't come up with anything better herself. "Alright, here they are."

She gestured at the first image, a brown eyed girl, her long brown hair slightly pulled up to form a spiky mess on top. "Yuuki Mikan. She's actually acquainted with Konjiki no Yami." A wave moved Mikan's image away, and the image of a green haired girl to the forefront. "Kohinata Miku, she was peripherally involved in a fairly major incident, but never gained any abilities herself." The next image came forward, a girl wearing a tight bodysuit, her purple hair's bangs obscuring her eyes. "Mukai Suzu, blind since birth, but with enhanced senses otherwise. She has some abilities, but nothing compared to the others around her." The last image, a girl with pale blue hair and bright red eyes. "Izumi Ako. She has a magically granted ability, but it's fairly minor, and all the other candidates either had more pronounced abilities or were otherwise unacceptable."

"They look perfect, Cosmos." Madoka smiled at her, the gentle smile that always made Cosmos remember the iron determination that lay just beneath it. "Things are proceeding perfectly, all that is left is to set events in motion." She smiled at Cosmos again, and this time the iron behind it was not hidden at all. "Shall we have some tea, before changing the universe once again?"


End file.
